Sanctions, smoke and mirrors from a kindergarten on LSD

The latest US sanctions and the Russian retaliatory response have resulted in a torrent of speculations in the official media and the blogosphere – everybody is trying to make sense of a situation which appears to make no sense at all. Why in the world would the US Senate adopt new sanctions against Russia when Russia has done absolutely nothing to provoke such a vote? Except for Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders, every single US Senator voted in favor of these sanctions. Why?! This is even more baffling when you consider that the single biggest effect of these sanctions will be to trigger a rift, and possibly even counter-sanctions, between the US and the EU. What is absolutely clear is that these sanctions will have exactly zero effect on Russia and I don’t think anybody is seriously expecting the Russians to change anything at all in their policies. And yet, every Senator except Paul and Sanders voted for this. Does that make any sense to you?

Let’s try to figure out what is going on here.

First, a simple reminder: like all US politicians, from the county level to the US Congress, Senators have only one consideration when then vote – “what’s in it for me?”. The very last thing which any US Senator really cares about are the real life consequences of his/her vote. This means that to achieve the kind of quasi unanimity (98%) for a totally stupid vote there was some kind of very influential lobby which used some very forceful “arguments” to achieve such a vote. Keep in mind that the Republicans in the Senate knew that they were voting against the wishes of their President. And yet every single one except for Rand Paul voted for these sanctions, that should tell you something about the power of the lobby which pushed for them. So who would have such power?

Okay, why not? We could probably rearrange them, give them different labels, add a couple (like the “Prison Industrial Complex” or the “Intelligence Community”) but all in all this is an okay list. Any name on it jump at you yet?

One could make the case that most of these lobbies need an enemy to prosper, this is certainly true of the Military-Industrial Complex and the associated high tech industry, and one could also reasonably claim that Big Oil, Mining and Agribusiness see Russia has a potential competitor. But a closer look at the interests these lobbies represent will tell you that they are mostly involved in domestic politics and that faraway Russia, with her relatively small economy, is just not that important to them. This is also clearly true for Big Pharma, the AARP and the NRA. Which leaves the Israel Lobby as the only potential candidate.

“Israel Lobby” is, of course, a misnomer. The Israel Lobby has very little interest in Israel as a country or, for that matter, for the Israeli people. If anything, the Israel Lobby ought to be called the “Neocon Lobby”. Furthermore, we also have to keep in mind that the Neocon Lobby is unlike any other lobby in the list above. For one thing, it does not represent US interests. Neither does it represent the interests of Israel. Rather, it represents the interests of a specific subset of the US ruling elites, in reality much smaller than 1% of the population, which all share in the one common ideology of worldwide domination typical of the Neocons.

These are the folks who in spite of their 100% ironclad control of the media and Congress lost the Presidential election to Donald Trump and who are now dead set to impeach him. These are the folks who simply use “Russia” as a propagandistic fulcrum to peddle the notion that Trump and his entourage are basically Russian agents and Trump himself as a kind of “Presidential Manchurian Candidate”.

Keep in mind that the historical record shows that while the Neocons are fantastically driven, they are not particularly smart. Yes, they do have the kind of rabid ideological determination which allows them to achieve a totally disproportionate influence over US policies, but when you actually read what they write and listen to what they say you immediately realize that these are rather mediocre individuals with a rather parochial mindset which makes them both very predictable and very irritating to the people around them. They always overplay their hand and then end up stunned and horrified when all their conspiracies and plans come tumbling down on them.

I submit that this is exactly what is happening right now.

First, the Neocons lost the elections. For them, it was a shock and a nightmare. The “deplorables” voted against the unambiguously clear “propaganda instructions” given to them by the media. Next, the Neocons turned their rabid hatred against Trump and they succeeded at basically neutering him, but only at the cost of terribly weakening the USA themselves! Think of it: 6 months plus into the Trump administration the USA has already managed to directly threaten Iran, Syria, the DPRK and in all cases with exactly zero results. Worse, Trump’s behavior towards Europe and the anti-Trump propaganda inside Europe has now put the EU and the US on a collision course. This is absolutely amazing: for the Russians the current tensions between the EU and the USA are a dream come true and yet they had absolutely nothing to do with it – it was all done by the self-defeating stupidity of the Americans who created this situation completely ex nihilo!

So while Kim Jong-un fires missiles on the 4th of July, the Syrian Army is closing in on Deir ez-Zor, the Ukraine is turning into Somalia, the Russian economy is back to growth and Putin’s popularity is as high as ever, the Neocons are totally freaking out and, as is typical of a person losing control, they don’t do things which would make sense but do what they are used to doing: slapping sanctions (even if they are totally ineffective) and sending messages (even if they are totally ignored). In other words, the Neocons are now engaging in magical thinking, the deliberately chose to delude themselves about their power and influence and they are coping with their full-spectrum failure at everything by pretending that their votes in Congress matter. They truth is – they don’t.

Here is where we need to turn to the other misconception in this matter, that the Russian reaction to these latest sanctions is really about these sanctions. It is not.

First, let’s tackle the myth that these sanctions are hurting Russia. They really don’t. Even the 100% russophobic Bloomberg is beginning to realize that, if anything, all these sanctions have made both Putin and Russia stronger. Second, there is the issue of timing: instead of slapping on some counter-sanctions the Russians suddenly decided to dramatically reduce the US diplomatic personnel in Russia and confiscate a two US diplomatic facilities in a clear retaliation for the expulsion of Russian diplomats and seizure of Russian diplomatic facilities by Obama last year. Why now?

Many observers say that the Russians are “naive” about the West and the USA, that Putin was “hoping” for better relations and that this hope was paralyzing him. Others say that Putin is “weak” or even “in cahoots” with the West. This is all total nonsense.

People tend to forget that Putin was an officer in the foreign intelligence branch of the KGB, the so-called “First Main Directorate” (PGU). Furthermore, Putin has recently revealed that he worked in the highly secretive “Directorate S” of the PGU and he was in charge of contacts with a network of illegal Soviet spies in East-Germany (were Putin was under the official cover of Director of the USSR-GDR Friendship House). If the PGU was the “elite of the elite” of the KGB, and its most secretive part, then the “Directorate S” was the “elite of the elite” of the PGU and its most secretive part. This is most definitely not a career for “naive” or “weak” people, to put it mildly! First and foremost, PGU officers were “specialists of the West” in general, and of the United States especially because the USA was always officially considered as the “main enemy” (even if most PGU officers personally considered the British as their most capable, dangerous and devious adversary). Considering the superb level of education and training given to these officers, I would argue that the PGU officers were amongst the best experts of the West anywhere in the world. Their survival and the survival of their colleagues depended on their correct understanding of the western world. As for Putin personally, he has always taken action in a very deliberate and measured way and there is no reason to assume that this time around the latest US sanctions have suddenly resulted in some kind of emotional outburst in the Kremlin. You can be darn sure that this latest Russian reaction is the result of very carefully arrived to conclusion and the formulation of a very precise and long-term objective.

I submit that the key to the correct understanding of the Russian response is in the fact that the latest US sanctions contain an absolutely unprecedented and, frankly, shocking feature: the new measures strip the President from the authority to revoke the sanctions. In practical terms, if Trump wanted to life any of these sanctions, he would have to send an official letter to Congress which would then have 30 days to approve or reject the proposed action. In other words, the Congress has now hijacked the power of the Presidency to conduct foreign policy and taken upon itself to micromanage the US foreign policy.

That, my friends, is clearly a constitutional coup d’état and a gross violation of the principles of separation of powers which is at the very core of the US political system.

It also is a telling testimony to the utter depravity of the US Congress which took no such measures when Presidents bypass Congress and started wars without the needed congressional authority, but which is now overtly taking over the US foreign policy to prevent the risk of “peace breaking out” between Russia and the USA.

And Trump’s reaction?

He declared that he would sign the bill.

Yes, the man is willing to put his signature on the text which represents an illegal coup d’état against this own authority and against the Constitution which he swore to uphold.

With this in mind, the Russian reaction is quite simple and understandable: they have given up on Trump.

Not that they ever had much hope in him, but they always strongly felt that the election of Trump might maybe provide the world with a truly historical opportunity to change the disastrous dynamic initiated by the Neocons under Obama and maybe return the international relations to a semblance of sanity. Alas, this did not happen, Trump turned out to be an overcooked noodle whose only real achievement was to express his thoughts in 140 characters or less. But the one crucial, vital, thing which Trump absolutely needed to succeed in – mercilessly crushing the Neocons – he totally failed to achieve. Worse, his only reaction to their multi-dimensional attempts at overthrowing him were each time met with clumsy attempts at appeasing them.

For Russia is means that President Trump has now been replaced by “President Congress”.

Since it is absolutely impossible to get anything done with this Congress anyway, the Russians will now engage in unilaterally beneficial measures such as dramatically reducing the number of US diplomats in Russia. For the Kremlin, these sanctions are no so much an unacceptable provocation has an ideal pretext to move on a number of Russian internal policies. Getting rid of US employees in Russia is just a first step.

Next, Russia will use the frankly erratic behavior of the Americans to proclaim urbi et orbi that the Americans are irresponsible, incapable of adult decision-making and basically “gone fishing”. The Russians already did that much when they declared that the Obama-Kerry team was недоговороспособны (nedogovorosposobny: “non agreement capable”, more about this concept here). Now with Trump signing his own constitutional demise, Tillerson unable to get UN Nikki to shut the hell up and Mattis and McMaster fighting over delusional plans to stop “not winning” in Afghanistan, the Obama-Kerry teams starts to look almost adult.

Frankly, for the Russians now is the time to move on.

I predict that the Neocon-crazies will not stop until they impeach Trump. I furthermore predict that the USA will not launch any major military interventions (if only because the USA has run out of countries it can safely and easily attack). Some “pretend interventions” (like the ill-fated missile strike on Syria) remain, of course, quite possible and even likely. This internal slow-mo coup against Trump will absorb the vast majority of the energy to get anything done, and leave foreign policy as simply another byproduct of internal US politics.

The East-Europeans are now totally stuck. They will continue to haplessly observe the unfolding Ukrainian disaster while playing at silly games pretending to be tough on Russia (the latest example of that kind of “barking from behind a fence” can be seen in the rather pathetic closure of the Romanian air space to a civilian aircraft with Russian Vice-Premier Dmitri Rogozin amongst the passengers). The real (West) Europeans will gradually come back to their senses and begin making deals with Russia. Even France’s Emmanuel Macron de Rothschild will probably prove a more adult partner than The Donald.

But the real action will be elsewhere – in the South, the East and the Far-East. The simple truth is that the world cannot simply wait for the Americans to come back to their senses. There are a lot of crucial issues which need to be urgently tackled, a lot of immense projects which need to be worked on, and a fundamentally new and profoundly different multi-polar world which needs to be strengthened. If the Americans want to basically recuse themselves from it all, if they want to bring down the constitutional order which their Founding Fathers created and if they want to solely operate in the delusional realm which has no bearing on reality – that is both their right and their problem.

Washington DC is starting to look like a kindergarten on LSD – something both funny and disgusting. Predictably, the kids don’t look too bright: a mix of bullies and spineless idiots. Some of them have their fingers on a nuclear button, and that is outright scary. What the adults need to do now is to figure out a way of keeping the kids busy and distracted so they don’t press the damn button by mistake. And wait. Wait for the inevitable reaction of a country which is so much more and better than its rulers and which now desperately needs a real patriot to stop Witches’ Sabbath in Washington DC.

I will end this column on a personal note. I just crossed the USA, literally, from the Rogue River in Oregon to East Central Florida. During that long trip I did not only see breathtakingly beautiful sights, but also plenty of beautiful people who oppose the satanic ball in DC with every fiber of their being and who want their country to be free from the degenerate demonic powers which have taken over the federal government. I have now lived a total of 20 years in the USA and I have learned to love and deeply appreciate the many kind, decent, honorable and simply beautiful people who live here. Far from seeing the American people as enemies of Russia, I see them has natural allies, if only because we have the same enemy (the Neocons in DC) and absolutely no objective reasons for conflict, none whatsoever. Moreover, in many ways Americans and Russians are very much alike, sometimes in comical ways. Just as during the Cold War I never lost hope in the Russian people, I now refuse to lose hope in the American people. Yes, the US federal government is disgusting, evil, ugly, stupid, degenerate and outright satanic, but the people of the USA are not. Far from it. I don’t know if this country can survive the current regime as one unitary USA or whether it will break up in several quite different entities (something I see as very possible), but I do believe that the people of the USA will survive and overcome just as the Russian people survived the horrors of the 1980s and 1990s.

[Sidebar: after being accused of being a “paid Putin agent” (Vladimir, please send me money!!), a “Jew-lover” or even a “crypto-Jew” myself, a Nazi and Anti-Semite (which decent and good person has not been called an Anti-Semite” at least once in his/her life), a Communist and a Muslim (or, at least, a “Muslim propagandist”), I will now be called an “USA lover”. Fine. Guilty as charged! I do love this country very much, as I do love its people. In fact, my heart often breaks for them and for the immense sufferings the Anglo-Zionist Empire also inflicts upon them. In the fight between the people of the USA and the Empire I unapologetically side with the people whom I see as friends, allies and even brothers.]

Right now the USA appears to be plunging into a precipice very similar to the one the Ukraine has plunged into (which is unsurprising, really, the same people inflicting the same disasters on whatever country they infect with their presence). The big difference is that immense and untapped potential of the USA to bounce back. There might not even be a Ukraine in 10 years, but there will most definitely be a USA, albeit maybe a very different one or even maybe several successor states.

But for the time being, I can only repeat what Floridians say when a hurricane comes barreling down on them: “hunker down” and brace for some very difficult and dangerous times to come.

The Saker

The Essential Saker II: Civilizational Choices and Geopolitics / The Russian challenge to the hegemony of the AngloZionist Empire

Leave a Reply

Leave a Reply

Click here to get more info on formatting

(1) Leave the name field empty if you want to post as Anonymous. It's preferable that you choose a name so it becomes clear who said what. E-mail address is not mandatory either. The website automatically checks for spam. Please refer to our moderation policies for more details. We check to make sure that no comment is mistakenly marked as spam. This takes time and effort, so please be patient until your comment appears. Thanks.

(2) 10 replies to a comment are the maximum.

(3) Here are formating examples which you can use in your writing:
<b>bold text</b> results in bold text
<i>italic text</i> results in italic text
(You can also combine two formating tags with each other, for example to get bold-italic text.)
<em>emphasized text</em> results in emphasized text
<strong>strong text</strong> results in strong text
<q>a quote text</q> results in a quote text (quotation marks are added automatically)
<cite>a phrase or a block of text that needs to be cited</cite> results in:a phrase or a block of text that needs to be cited
<blockquote>a heavier version of quoting a block of text...</blockquote> results in:

a heavier version of quoting a block of text that can span several lines. Use these possibilities appropriately. They are meant to help you create and follow the discussions in a better way. They can assist in grasping the content value of a comment more quickly.

and last but not least:
<a href=''http://link-address.com''>Name of your link</a> results in Name of your link

(4)No need to use this special character in between paragraphs:&nbsp;You do not need it anymore. Just write as you like and your paragraphs will be separated.The "Live Preview" appears automatically when you start typing below the text area and it will show you how your comment will look like before you send it.

(5) If you now think that this is too confusing then just ignore the code above and write as you like.

200 Comments

“”” The Israel Lobby has very little interest in Israel as a country or, for that matter, for the Israeli people. If anything, the Israel Lobby ought to be called the “Neocon Lobby”. Furthermore, we also have to keep in mind that the Neocon Lobby is unlike any other lobby in the list above. For one thing, it does not represent US interests. Neither does it represent the interests of Israel. “””
Then why do you refer to it as “Israel lobby” if it has nothing to do with Israel? Why don’t you call it Neocon Lobby?

Iran is a joke: the Islamic Republic placed its hopes on the JCPOA to avert war. Now, it is extremely clear that not having nukes is going to cost so much to the regime and its people.
North Korea is the best example of what nuclear deterrence is all about, and nuclear force is the only language that Washington understands (and fears too).
Ordinary Iranians better get ready to see their country going back to the stone age (courtesy of Israel and the Arab coalition).

“Israel lobby” is actually correct because at the core of its power & strategic objectives is the establishment of a greater Israeli state which will have control over 2 crucial elements of global power – 1. the bulk of the worlds energy & mineral resources, 2. the major maritime & land trade corridors (inc. the Suez Canal in the eventual annexation of the Sinai by Israel). This “Greater/Eretz Israel” is forecasted to eventually replace the US as the base of Western power in the world, as the US simply does not have the resources or the strategic position geographically to exercise domination of the world’s land mass in Eurasia & Africa. This is basic Mackinder. Incidentally, if that Greater Israeli state were ever established, it would not even necessarily be called “Israel” at that point, for its character would probably change on expansion of territory & repatriation of large population segments from the US to the Mid East. For those that think this is highly implausible, think Dubai. The whole point of metropolis projects such as Dubai is to see if such locations can attract large numbers of immigrants from wealthier countries – & in this respect it has proven fairly successful. An earlier variant of this were Western worker complexes in Saudi Arabia. This project also explains why the US is prepared to go to such lengths to attack Russia, even when damaging to its own immediate interests – because the longer term strategic plan supercedes immediate considerations. Russia is now blocking Israeli expansion, before it was exclusively Iran, now it is Russia as well, which is what motivated the terrorist war against Syria. The defeat of the jihadists in Syria is a monumental defeat for the Anglo-Zionist axis. A defeat from which they are not likely to recover.

“Greater Israeli State” that will have control over the bulk of energy and minerals? Are you serious?
Israel is a tiny country, smaller than Massachusetts, with 7 million people. The reason why people come to Dubai is oil money (and they always go back. Not a single one would stay to fight for “Greater Dubai”). What will Israel use to attract people? The lack of any natural resources? A huge real estate bubble? Pride parades in Tel Aviv? Free circumcision for all?

The neocons are very real and so is their lobby. I just don’t understand what they have to do with Israel.Trump was very pro Israel and Zionism. Why would the Neocon lobby like semi anti Israeli Obama and hate very pro Israeli Trump? Maybe because they nothing to do with Israel.

You evidently have no understanding of the function of the Israeli state, why it was established, what its purpose is, & why it continuously attacks its neighbours & attempts to annex territory – sometimes succesfully as in Golan – sometimes unsuccessfully such as Sinai & South Lebanon. You also are evidently not familiar with the Yinnon plan, the intention to expand Israel from the Nile to the Euphrates. Neither are you aware of the Khazaria project, Israel 2.0 on the Black Sea. Neither are you aware of Israel’s increasinlgy lax standards for immigration criteria, allowing for large numbers of pseudo-Jews, who are not even Jewish, usually from Russia, so as to boost the population. (removed,don’t attack other posters.MOD)

Israel successfully conquered Sinai in 67 and then willingly returned it. It also did the same with Gaza. What they are doing in the West Bank is horrible – but seriously viewing the function of the Israeli state as trying to attack and annex territory is naive and simply does not go with reality. The Israeli “increasingly lax standards” were the same since 1970, before they could bring anyone from Russia to boost the population. It is called the Law of Return and it applies to everyone who would otherwise be persecuted under Nuremberg laws.

Also even if the secret aim of Israel is to bring non Jews and use them to conquer more territories – what the hell does it have to do with lobbying against Trump?! Trump said he would move the US embassy to Jerusalem. He was constantly pro Israel and supported by Sheldon Adelson – Netanyahu’s close ally. Why would the Zionists be against him if he is friendly to them?

But yeah sure, Vor. Israel from Nile to Euphrates. The Jews are coming to get you. I suggest reading more deeply into the Protocols of Elders of Zion for some more confirmation bias.

The Israeli’s are totally enamored of technology and believe that they can prevail over great armies with massive armaments and robot armies which they are furiously, via the Pentagon, developing. That is why that research is so dangerous. Remember shock and Awe? Likewise remember Macron’s mentor, Jacque Attali’s proposal for a world government with it’s capitol in Jeruselem?

Sure, Trump could have refused to sign it, as a symbolic gesture, but both the House and Senate had passed it with veto-proof majorities, so he couldn’t have stopped it from becoming law. I’m sure whether or not to refuse to sign it was a difficult decision to make, but I think that he ultimately decided that doing that as a meaningless symbolic gesture would have made him look like a pouting baby, and so instead signed it and released a statement condemning it immediately afterward.

I must say I feel you are being ridiculous in your arguments against Trump, it doesn’t matter if Trump refused to sign the bill, the congress could make it into law anyway. Trump very well knows the bill is bad and unconstitutional, and will result in negative relationship with Russia and EU. And has said so, but has no option in signing it.

Trump is in a battle with the deep-state which is probably around a 1000 times stronger then the puny forces Putin was up against when he became president.

In terms of lobbyists, its not an either or choice as to who’s fault it is ….. but instead its a culmative effect. I see the ‘war industry’, and ‘big finance’ on the list along with the Israel-firsters. And as you correctly mentioned, the natural resources interests are in competition with Russia.

So, each would bring along their own pet congress-critters. Each lobby has a certain pool of votes that do whatever they say. For others, its a culmative effect, where none of the above is convincing alone, but when a congress-critter gets contributions from several of these lobbies, and they all agree that Russia is bad and that patriotic protectionism is good, then that’s more votes.

The real question is who would stand up against all of the above? That list turned out to be Paul the Younger and Bernie the Fake Socialist, plus three libertarian leaning members of the house. The Progressive Caucus in the house is conspicuously absent from the list, which I suppose puts the firmly in the pro-nuclear-war camp of the Democrats.

Isn’t it funny that thesaker goes out of his way to show that Putin actually is good and innocent and being pressured by external forces when he makes a bad decision, but when Trump literally is forced by external forces to do something bad, he is a wet noodle without balls?

Even if Trump were to veto the sanction bill, the congress would overide his veto, so the only thing he can do is to say that he will sign it and then push it up for as long as possible until he finds out a way to get around it.

What you say is correct, in my opinion. Both Trump and Putin have powerful enemies from the same club in their respective countries. Cutting down the diplomatic work force is a step to weaken the neocons in Russia. So Putin and Trump may well work in the same direction to accomplish the defeat of the neocons, both in Russia and in the USA.

The English/British working man before the Great Imperial Defense’ of WW1 were also good sorts. But what you do not extract from the decent average American is the balm, peace and plenty bestowed on you by the vast plunder your government and ruthless corporations shower into your country from misdeeds abroad. That is why:

1. none of your countries enemies will ever separate out the average American from the government line, as you are all willing beneficiaries of an evil system, and that mistrust will last for generations, as it has for us English abroad.

2. why your government will uphold its right to send the sons and daughters of you beneficiaries to war in defense of the system that feeds you, as we did in WW1.

I do not believe in the ‘good American’ as a concept until I see American’s living without the fruits of Imperial plunder. We may begin to see that in the coming decades. History shows us that when Americans were fighting for scraps in the 18-19th Centuries, you were often squalid, ruthless, baseless and brutal towards each other and innocent people.

The Neocons, as you call them, are doing the same sort of thing that their ancient ancestors did when things went wrong: keep sacrificing. Nothing improved… and no one was left to kill. No power to exercise.

Good observations, and very nice words about the People.
Dolts that we are, sheeple and uneducatated, Americans have a sense that Russians are not enemies. It permeates alt right and conservative comment sites. They sense something is inverted in the Russophobic memes of the Deep State and MSM.

Good to have you back.

I disagree on one thing. Trump will want to do something about Venezuela. With Kelly, who knows the details well as former Commander of the Southern Command, he may find some way to fuel the color revolution or hybrid war there.

He needs a big wag the dog event and that’s the safest place to do it.
Marco Rubio is the head cheerleader.
The 2018 elections will need a foreign policy win. Venezuela looks like the “ideal” place for Bay of Pigs II.
Send in the clowns. It could be Grenada with SEALS falling to their death again, or Panama, with Meth-filled troops using laser weapons to melt the poor in the barrios. Time to test the new weapons, too.
There is no end to the insanity in Washington.
They panic that the Hemisphere may be getting away from them.
These factors are why I think Trump will go for it.

Correction: 1) the SEALS Team was decimated by snipers during the Panama’s Paitilla airport runway sea shore assault not in Grenada. Team SEAL’s mission was to cut the General’s escape route via his personal jet.

Laser didn’t burn the barrios but a big fire spreadout in El Chorrillo around the Comandancia (HQ of Manuel Antonio Noriega’s Panamanian Defense Forces) after heavy air bombardment and shelling with thermobaric ordnance. The housing in decrepit and poor El Chorrillo was all in very old wood.

It’s past 23:00 in this bucolic little valley and half of us in this village are still somewhat tipsy from Fleet Day on the 30th. Why the heck do you have to write an excellent and foresighted article when I’ve been up since 05:00 and have been having a wine and whine session with my charming bride in the Aquarium for the last three hours whilst enjoying some very good Massandrah Muskat Chorni and listening to Tchaikovsky with Sophia, Alyeesya, Ye’katarina and Aleksandr snoring at our feet?

It is my understanding that those being expelled are ‘diplomats’, meaning foreign nationals. The expulsion of these worthies means a number of hired help locals will lose their employment also but as several have commented the hired help to a man I would bet are 150% behind the anti Russia policies of USA.

Looking from afar it is difficult to fathom the reasoning behind the sanctions imposed on Russia by EU, USA, Australia and Japan beyond a simple desire to bend Russia to the will of USA. A fried snail understands that it is impossible to bend Russia to anyone’s will but the children on meth running around Foggy Bottom and Langley live in their own delusional world.

The sanctions themselves have in some ways been a boon to Russia and have had zero affect on TPTB and the economy in general. In my opinion the aim of the sanctions was to hurt Russia’s economy enough that the great unwashed masses would eventually revolt against the ‘regime’ in Moscow, overthrow President Putin thus creating the same mass confusion and turmoil of 1917-1923 and give the meth head children the opportunity to destroy and fragment Russia once and for all. This of course did not happen and will never happen. The sanctions galvanized the populace of Russia and united the vast majority of them in support of President Putin and Russia, in other words exactly the opposite of what the meth heads intended.

Anyone with a minimum of operative brain cells and common sense knows that one does not reinforce a losing campaign, one starves a failure and reinforces success. True to form the meth heads and brain damaged ones did exactly the opposite and verified the diagnosis of insanity in that they continue to do and will continue to do exactly those actions that have failed so miserably in the past, reasoning that sooner or later using the failed methods they will achieve success. To coin a phrase, ain’t gonna happen.

The bad, and somewhat frightening, truth concerning the meth heads is that these clowns are in control of a powerful military that has the ability to fight, and invade, Russia with a fair possibility of winning the coming war depending on how ruthless they are.

Therein lies the kernel of this mess. The war has started, commenced in roughly 2012, and is marching to armed confrontation on the borders of Russia and her allies.

US/NATO/EU/Korea are steadily advancing to the very borders of Russia. At the moment Russia has managed to keep they away from most of the actual borders but everywhere they can the meth heads have advanced their armed forces to the actual borders. Where they can’t do so they have actively and completely suborned weak countries to do their bidding and at this time from the north Finland borders all the way south to the Black Sea NATO/US/EU forces are virtually eyeball to eyeball with Russian armed forces. US is actively fomenting as many problems as it can in the southern ‘stans’ and the game plan is to eventually put it’s forces in them, too, ostensibly for training and practice drills but the reality is the NATO/US/EU troops never leave after any drills near the borders of Russia.

When one sees your enemies steadily advancing to one’s borders and using every excuse in the world but the truth, one has to go on the fact that the enemies are preparing for an attack, ergo my strongly convinced opinion that we are at war and the armed hostilities could commence at any time. The sanctions are just as described, smoke and mirrors to obfuscate the obvious, Russia is in eminent danger of an attack along her western, parts of the southern and her eastern borders.

It remains to be seen how strong this attack will be and what the reply from Russia will entail but I keep remembering the words of President Putin to the effect that never again will there be fighting on the lands of Russia and the President has made it crystal clear that any attack will be answered with tactical nuclear armaments during the response of Russian Armed Forces.

So the choice is thus: Are the meth heads so adamant in their beliefs that they will continue their march to war and assured destruction or will more sane and reasoned heads prevail in the various US/NATO/EU armed forces and the order to attack refused.

Only time will tell but for us personally it won’t matter. Even a ‘simple’ swarm of cruise missiles will do significant damage to our quaint little valley and our city on the Black Sea and like spoiled children who are denied the toy they want, the meth heads will attempt to destroy this city and harbor since they can’t have it. For us the ‘splatter affect’ will be considerable, we are close enough to the harbor to be both under the umbrella of Russian Armed Forces and in danger of those missiles that manage to penetrate said umbrella or are deflected but not brought down. Such is life…..and death.

Intelligent analysis. However, I have to disagree with the point regarding imminent war, as inviting as that conclusion might be under present circumstances. But the trtuth is that the US is, as it has been for some years now, been implementing its hybrid war strategy to weaken, disrupt, destabilise Russia on multiple fronts by attempting to foment problems internal to Russia, by economic warfare in the form of increasing international sanctions, by attempting to isolate Russia on the international front, by massing military assets on her borders causing her to respond with a costly defense buildup, by encouraging costly regional conflicts that keep Russia occupied and distracted, by removing itself from strategic arms agreements (thus forcing a new and costly arms race), and by building up its so-called missile defense capabilities surrounding Russia and China. The US wants to bleed Russia of patience, money and internal strength.

It does not in any sense want to destroy Russia by force, as it knows full well that to do that it would have to risk its own nuclear destruction. No, the US wants to weaken Russia economically, destabilise its political system and eventually break it up into manageable pieces compliant with the needs of the Empire.

Under normal circumstances and against a typical foe this strategy would be an entirely useful and effective one. But these are not normal circumstances, nor is this a typical foe. The US is an Empire that has, as so many others before them have done, overextended itself, and now finds itself fighting on multiple socio-political, military and economic fronts fighting off the ‘barbarians, and destroying itself from within via the takeover of the country by uncompromising and opposing ideologies preventing any internal progress on domestic issues. It also finds itself engaged internationally against opponents who are several cuts above the their typical enemy in terms of military strength, geographical advantage, sophistication, patience, strategy assessment, tactical response, intelligence and plain common sense – i.e., Russia, China and Iran. Two of these are countries that can quite literally destroy the United States should she go to war with them. These are countries that will never, ever submit to foreign dominance again, even at the risk of self-destruction.

So no, I do not believe the US will intentionally go to war with these countries, especially Russia. She will try to bleed them instead, attempting to kil them off with the death of a thousand tiny cuts.

Of course, the only problem with that strategy being that she herself is undergoing a similar death.

I must respectfully disagree with you. The amounts of AFV’s, soft skins, transport, arty and ordinance being pre-positioned for these ‘training exercises’ is vastly larger than what is needed for said exercises.

Toss in the fact that the numbers of troops positioned for the exercises does not decrease when the exercises are completed, the general rhetoric emanating from Langley, Foggy Bottom and Pentagon, the economic warfare being waged against Russia for the last 4 years, the quiet ramp up of German armored forces (albeit admittedly they are but a shadow of what they were 25 years ago), and all the signs are there for the initiation of military hostilities at almost a moment’s notice.

Look at the maps and you tell me what they are doing. When you observe your enemy slowly easing up to you, all the while them saying they are just picking berries in the late summer weather, one must come to the conclusion that these advances are for a purpose. There is no other purpose possible beyond what I opined in my post. The berries they will try to pick first is Kaliningrad. There will be a provocation there, mark my words.

If all this activity is just smoke and mirrors that will be the best result, but on the other hand our military has the task of defending The Motherland and from the very obvious looks of things for AFR to not take precautions and get ready is a failure of their duty to Russia.

… ramp up of German armored forces (albeit admittedly they are but a shadow of what they were 25 years ago)

25 years ago the German military consisted mainly of conscripts and some professional military personnel. It’s purpose had been for defense(!) only. Since then the mindset of German politicians has changed. Now German politicians are babbling something about assuming more responsibility in the World and about helping to bring “democracy” to other countries. The Establishment got infected by the same delusions as their American partners have shown all along.

Whilst surely NATO is increasing troop deployments across Europe, esp on Russia’s borders, this does not in any way indicate that they are preparing for some kind of invasion of Russia. For one thing the troop numbers are miniscule when compared to those required of a serious invasion force, esp one contemplating the invasion of a vast country like Russia. It would be insane – even the sociopaths in Washington wouldn’t contemplate that.

No, the NATO buildup is for provocation only. Hitler tried with an overwhelming force of 3 million soldiers and most of his air force and tank divisions against a Russian military not ready for such an action. Today’s Russian forces are much better equipped and ready for such eventualities, and far, far more powerful. The psychopaths in Washington, I am certain, are keenly aware of the results of Hitler’s attempt and most certainly aware of Russia’s current military readiness.

Having said all that, however, I must admit that NATO is playing a seriously dangerous game in placing its anti-missile defense systems close to Russian territory, a defense system that can within minutes and without anyone’s knowledge be converted to an offensive system capable of a very deep and deadly strike into the heart of Russia when the technology advances to that point. This action raises all kinds of alarms.

Putin was very clear on what he thought of this as well, suggesting firmly that Russia could well strike first when America developed the missiles used by the system to a level that has the range to take out Russian silos. His point – Russia will consider the development of such missiles a clear and present danger to the existence of Russia, and therefore have no other option than to strike first before these missiles are brought into service.

that does make sense, but there is a problem with that and I’d side with Auslender on the inevitability of the war. Problem is that US/dark forces (whatever) know that they don’t have too much time, Russia/China is getting stronger with every year and even more importantly the masks are off for a while now and the ‘democracy’ doesn’t work as a pretext any more. The strategy you’re describing makes some sense but is more characteristic of let’s call it an “old America”. Many events recently and over the years now are pointing to US that is in a hurry to do damage, ASAP and by any means necessary so much so that they’re not hiding their agenda any more and are being more blatant about it (which speaks about the rush that they not really care about any country may think even allies like EU). I think that ‘tipping point’ when they realized they’re losing the battle, or might, and they need to step up their game in order to catch up Russia why still let’s say somewhat weaker in some aspects at least – I think that point is long gone now and it’s rolling down the hill. I’m thinking they are pursuing a very aggressive drive to spark crises and “hoping” for some of those crisis that would catch the RF and Putin off guard they could use to cash in, gain some sort of advantage, limited warfare or something (one of the reasons why Russia is warning that it won’t be on its soil). Basically I don’t think they’ll flinch at initiating some sort of tactical war at some point, conflicts will be created and it’s going to get closer and closer, they’d be hoping the ‘blunt the response’ and get everybody used to it – and in the end it’s going to be on Russia to respond with nukes or not – which his difficult decision for anybody (with some consciousness) knowing it’s going to end the world – and Russia might blink and US might get their limited war.
What I’m saying I think, and I agree with you there, I don’t think us/neocons are stupid at all or silly – I think they know very well what they’re doing. They’re “masters of chaos”, it may seem unrelated or confused but I’m pretty sure that’s their intention (Russia is not the only one reading the Lao Tzu art of war). They’ll try to instigate conflicts and chaos all over the place – and sort of stretch the frontline in many ways – hoping to cut the RF off as much as possible. And that’s going to be very difficult for Russia. Thing is when you have no moral scruples you can do lot of damage and if that’s your strategy then that’s unpredictable and even more dangerous. I don’t think we’ve seen the “best” of US yet in that respect. They don’t care for their own people, so we can only imagine what is they can do to the rest of the world or Russia they don’t like.
On the other side the question is how US got into that situation (realizing it’s too late and the real conflict is the only way forward) – well I guess Putin did great job there and surprised them. But we can’t just write the US off because they’re making mistakes here and there – as a bully and with lot of power they can allow that (and Saker wrote about it). But make no mistake (oh I hate that expression) they’re spending lot of time and lot of smart people are working on theories and options. And politics doesn’t matter as much if your ultimate goal is chaos.

Anonymuous222
Very good line of thought. An ‘insane’ attack of immediate neighbours of Russia, for instance Belarus, or Turkmenistan. ‘Attack’ can be anything out of the limitless arsenal minus nukes. Russia then at a point must react as one has to react to a Bully – a major out of proportion blow – something which hurts tremedously and forces the Bully into meditation mode. Tactical Nukes come to mind – the last warning message – one step further and you will be ash and dust allover. Maybe a major Computer-Hack, or even a Commando style Operation ideally with your strategic partners. The Blow must be so that the psychological component must be of equal proportion to the physical component.
But as I’ve already said this is all in vain, when the one really directing the show sit save somewhere in South-America on a hacienda far from danger. The key is to Identify the main component of your enemy, the Head, in our case that means certain circles in the tribe most certainly, the list is not indefinite. These in such circumstances Must be very valid targets. We all remember the Cruise Missile attacks on Ghadaffi and his family. Something analogue Must be taken into consideration if as we have very strong indication outside individuals comprise the Head.Please refrain from using capitals – its like shouting- site rules. Amended this one time. Mod

very interesting, of course “allies” will be waiting for thing just like that (as a just cause to escalate further) and deeply entrenched. I’m sure RF will come up with something appropriate (or stronger) but it’s very unenvious position to be in. Problem is that all the fear mongering in Europe, north / east Europe(about Russia) has a very clear goal to mobilize all the resources (readiness and all that, # of weapons etc.) to the point that they’re ready and waiting for RF attack. If you think of it, that sounds crazy and silly today, as RF obviously doesn’t want to do that, and wouldn’t be doing that…unless provoked to retaliate. So it makes you wonder (not) is the west actually preparing their troops, expanding them in all directions (and around RF) to be prepared for what’s effectively their own attack (and expected retaliatory action by RF). As for the other part, that’s a hydra and it’s going to be very hard. All in all not an easy position or decisions for Russia.

I agree with the essence of Victor’s that suggests the U.S. will not engage Russia, such to ignite a full conflict due to the several factors suggested.
To paraphrase, it would be crazy for the U.S.A. to enter a real military conflict with Russia.
Of particular note in the argument is the internal disarray, amidst the ongoing coup d’etat, and unaligned key agencies, i.e. intelligence.

But ultimately, the 0.1% are the most predictable, and their meth head toadies in the remainder of the 1%, occupying key decision-making nexi (is that supposed to be ‘nexuses’). These socio-paths know how to push everything along.

There is little doubt about the march to war, in the preponderance of the factions of the 0.1%.
I believe it is about hiding their out-and-out gross theft from the 99%; under normal circumstances, it’s going to be difficult to keep that on the QT for very much longer.
They need to focus the attention of the people on the bogeyman (and his evil minions) while they play clean-up, hiding the tracks of the theft, no mean task, while, of course, stealing much again.

But the tactics of mind-control have been pushed to the limit. Even the mighty hasbara is wearing thin; the blaring hypocrisies, and overbearing disregard for… ultimately all life, are being read, certainly at a subconscious level, which enables a wide range of potentially explosive outcomes, but above and beyond that, people are simply falling into waking awareness, when all reasonable doubt has been used up!

Interestingly, this shows alignment of urgency.

But the American administration is in a shambles.
While we know that the 0.1% sociopaths use these veins of opportunity to ram through their agenda, I think we’re close to the breaking point for the people to initiate an insurgence. And who’s to say that significant factions of the armed services won’t side with them?!
Service personnel, those actually having seen service, as a demographic, know as acutely as anyone how the empire is double-talking back-stabbers; they’ve been on the front line of it, and then see how service personnel are treated when they’re out.

There is a lot of instability in the Empire; it is unstable.
Certainly it is explosive, but one can’t be certain which way it will blow.

The 0.1% will continue to create the architecture for a ‘mistake‘ to ignite the conflict (a well-worn method, see The Great War).

Now we have the other sides to the equation, emerging associate nations in the new multi-polar world: Russia, China, and Iran (gaining in prestige everyday through it’s association with this group).
While issues continue to occupy their leadership, their leadership is much, much more solid that the sociopaths and their meth head henchmen.
One must expect that they are busy, planning and preparing, executing mitigation and counter-measures (as I write).
Putin has already distinguished himself as the most astute and capable foreign policy leader in living history.
China continues their coherent 20-50 year strategic program.
Iran continues to make the proponents of the Empire look as silly as they are, in their neighbourhood.

Europe is fragmenting, as we write.
I’d love to hear about changes in positions at the top of NATO before September is here.

Never assume you are dealing with humanoids (another assumption) who can reason and understand consequences.

While I agree that VVP is the greatest statesman this rock has seen in a very long time, he has a task that belittles the Labors of Hercules, both international and domestic. That being said, VVP is doing his level best to avoid active, read shooting, war.

On the other hand, many forget his off the cuff, which was anything but ‘off the cuff’, comment last year about growing up on the streets of St. Petersburg and his thoughts about the constant squabbles and fights amongst the children and teenagers. Roughly put, if he thought a particular situation could not be resolved without fisticuffs he would get in the first and most telling blow.

This is a statement that many should ponder, in particular those children on meth infesting the environs of Foggy Bottom, Langley and Pentagon.

The differences in our respective positions are at most minor details compared to the high level commonality.

No disagreements about VVP; after the current fog has cleared, depending on who writes the history, he should appear very admirably.

But I disagree to a minor point, I’d expect, “… if he thought a particular situation could not be resolved without fisticuffs he would get in the first and most telling blow.”

I reckon, he’d more likely be the first to draw and settle the matter up that way.

I don’t know if you’ve found this to be the same, but I really trust people who can fight, a lot more than people who don’t know how to fight. He knows how to fight. (and play hockey; we prize that in my land).

I am interested in your opinion on how the referred to American people might overcome the rot at the levels of authority and decision-making, not just in the government boondoggle, but in other regions of the society, i.e. mass media.
Just like where I am, the people have been hood-winked, they, the majority, have NOT been paying adequate attention, and consequently have NOT upheld their responsibility to preserve… all the good stuff they have.

I don’t think there is a solution for the average American. Individually they are powerless just as the average people everywhere are powerless. Change comes either at the election box or the point of a bayonet, no other way. The election box was stolen long before the inauguration and so far The Deplorables have not reacted. Will they? I don’t know. I do know that people I know and trust in US say that Trumps core of supporters, those who gave him the election, are still behind him. Only time will tell what becomes of this coup.

The war has started, commenced in roughly 2012, and is marching to armed confrontation on the borders of Russia and her allies.

You’ve written an excellent comment. However you should check your statement that the conflict started around 2012. The first Cold War never really ended. After the USSR disintegrated the Western “Elites” were still celebrating their “victory”, whilst looting each nation that they could lay their hands on. When President Putin resumed his position they were butthurt, but thought they could manage this “problem”. Now that the Russian President has proven to be a major obstacle they’re trying to double down.

I agree that the Cold War never really stopped but one could say that it abated to a great extent in the ’90’s. Of course one could also say The War To End All Wars that commenced officially in 1914 has never ended, either, there has not been peace since that summer day.

VVP was a stunning arrival for the west. I remember, at first they mocked and denigrated him but it didn’t take long for them to understand that he was something different, something that could not be bent to their will. To say they were shocked two years in to VVP’s first time is like calling a 200 kilo rabbit mildly horizontally challenged.

Read 1984, those who put faith in the poople are deluded, they will continue with their football and American Idol,Kool Aid. Nobody is going to rise, this country is going to hell, I say so living in the USA with my family, but I want the destruction of it, Poople should have risen much earlier, too many crimes and blood on their hands, don’t tell that revering the heroes who sacrificed their lives for freedom will stop anytime soon.

Do you remember how utterly depraved, disgusting and hopeless Russia looked under the rule of the oligarchs in the 1990s? That’s the time when people used to say that “every Russian boy wants to become a criminal and every Russian girl a hooker”. Do you remember the long queue in front of McDonald’s in Moscow, the bloodbath in 1993, Eltsin pissing on the landing gear of this aircraft, Dudaev in Grozny, Tatarstan printing its own “money” and the TV full of senseless idiocy?
To me the USA in 2017 looks a heck of a lot healthier than Russia in 1993, that’s for sure.

Russians knew they were Russians, in Moscow and in the boonies. They were aware who the pre neocons were. I was there.

Thanks to jackson vannik the pre neocons have invaded another host and the us has to suffer for it. AIPAC cant even be required to register as a foreign rep, and look at the next gem the congress rats will pass. The BDS movemt will be criminalized.

+Saker
The situation of Russia and Putin’s emergence cannot be transferred to the US. In case of Russia there were still cells and structures (the KGB) which were largely untouched and which could be used. Putin was Jelzin’s revenge, he knew exactly what he did. Russia still had the inner moral power and will to execute such a feat. In the US no such structures are in place near the Power Center, everything is TOTALLY corrupted, no one can move in that web of dependencies and corrupted levels, the moment you move you alert the whole system immediately. Also the branches CIA and military although they might hate each other still are interwoven on all levels, no one can move without notice ! So it’s Really up to the people. Only – real out of the people coming insurgencies most often failed as history shows impressively, even if they had splendid Leaders (for instance the La Vendeé insurgencies during the French ‘Revolution’), they simply don’t have the necessary Logistics to effectively fight out a longer fight – although it can have – a beacon effect to which the people and parts of the State-appartus can rally. But then again you must have a Key by which you are identified without fail. In the case of the Vendeé it was simple – all were catholics and all were from a certain region. But What would be the Key to identify the honest ??! What element cannot be falsified ??? Yeah times have proceeded far down a very dark alley, a lot of work ought to be done, but is and cannot not be done because there is no social body anymore, there is no common anymore which is not fake. What is the Banner you can really your soldiers ? All your memes are hollowed out ‘Freedom’, ‘Liberty’, ‘Nation’, ‘Democracy’, maybe Self determination under God’s law ?

Are we experiencing a transformation from civilian leadership into a military dictatorship? It seems that the military not only chooses strategy, but also now sets policy. And the military is led by neocons at present.

A side story in all this could be the recent Awan story being primarily reported as a fraud case. Independent journalist researching outside of MSM indicate the Awan brothers may in fact be part of a Pakistani ISI spy ring working not only as IT specialists, but also in conjunction with the Clinton Foundation and with the US intelligence agencies in order to conduct espionage within our government on selected targets without having to involve our own intelligence agencies. If the story gets legs and proves truthful, it would indicate a massive conspiracy and treason at the highest levels of government.

There is an imperative to blame Qatar, who were backing MB and the armed groups spun from that ideology.

Qatar now is scrambling to hold tight to Turkey, Iran and Russia for survival.
But Saudi and the Deep State have the perfect foil for all bad things.
This scandal in the Democratic Congress IT operations, including leaks that may have taken Seth Rich to his death, could be linked up with these Paki brothers and Qatar.
Mueller or another Special Counsel might be put onto this scent.
It isn’t going to go away easily. Too many facts are already out.
There may even be a secret Federal Grand Jury being set in order for the DOJ to make the case.
We may hear about this from Sessions soon.

Thanks Saker for this heartfelt article. You are right to point out that American people have nothing to do with the clique that runs their country and the West. You are right too when you say that Congress is now the executive power. Here’s the next move they’ll make: arming Ukraine with lethal antitank missiles. Deep Staters want their war and will get it. It was just postponed when Trump won the elections.http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-31/here-comes-next-escalation-pentagon-offers-arm-ukraine

The US is scared to use military force against Russia. The first time one of its shiny aircraft goes down, the first time cruise missiles take out some US base e.g. the first-strike ‘missile defense’ systems in Poland/Romania, etc, etc is the end of the myth of US military supremacy and the end of US MIC sales. There have been no further US air strikes against the Syrians since the Russians fired an S-300 missile into the eastern Med – target unknown – maybe a warning about the vulnerability of the floating airbases? Remember the US military hardware is designed for maximum profit, the RUssian systems seem to be designed for maximum effectiveness.

It is also indicative that it took two missiles fired from one of the US finest and most modern aicraft to shoot down a 1970’s era Su-20. The best bit is that the first short range missile locked on to the non-NATO decoy flares, requiring a second shot using a medium range missile. Any guy in the US military who isn’t on Kool Aid has to look at the ~50% strike rate of their cruise missiles and the 50% strike rate of their air-to-air missile and wonder ‘do I feel lucky, punk’.

A great article,I loved it. But I do want to post a few points or questions on it.

1. I think the reduction of the US diplomatic staff was/is a great idea. I hope other countries will do the same. But while I’m happy about it. After reading a Wapo story about it I’m “less” happy than I was. If the story is correct,and anyone with the ability should be able to find the figures to show if it is. The total number of “US” citizens among that staff is less than 400. And according to Putin the US can have 455 staff. So what that means is that most of the over 1200 in the diplomatic mission are local Russian employee’s. And that the cuts will affect them and almost no Americans. So yes it will impair their spying and subversion ability somewhat. And its a great “symbolic” move. But it isn’t as we hoped, going to see vast numbers of “Americans” kicked out of Russia. So I put the bottle of Champagne back in the fridge after hearing that.

2. From what I read yesterday,Sanders was OK with the sanctions on Russia. But objected to the other sanctions. And the targeting of foreign EU companies. While Paul was the one that was a man of principal on the vote.And opposed the sanctions totally (and has in the past as well).

3.I’d list the Defense Industry,pro-Israel lobby,and neo-cons as almost one item (and certainly together the biggest one). You might even add Big Oil (and gas) to that. From what I see,the MIC,Israel lobby,neo-cons,are interchangeable. And all “sing from the same song-sheet”. While the Energy big boys are hand and glove with them as well.

4. I totally agree with you there is a coup going on.But while its slowly coming out that Russia “didn’t” collude with Trump to interfere in the US election. That doesn’t let Putin “off the hook”. The “new” story running around is that Russia “hacked the elections” to sow chaos in the US political scene. And discredit (like that would be hard at all) the US political system.So it will be “Russia’s fault” no matter what. Which leads to point/question 5.

5. Even if somehow Trump survives all this. Or assuming he doesn’t. Either way the US has created a “myth” of the diabolical Russians. The arch enemy of the US. Some people (maybe most) don’t buy that totally. But some do,and some buy parts of it,even if not all. So say 10% buy 100% of the myth,20% buy 60% of the myth,20% buy 50% of the myth,and etc,etc. What we have is a long term distrust/hatred of Russians built on that lie. But as history shows,those hatreds can last generations.After several decades of the demise of the USSR. The people in the US (huge numbers of them) still talk of the “commie Russians”. Call Russians the “Soviets” a lot,etc,etc. And the neo-cons “knew” how easy it would be for them to concoct the Russiagate myth and people would accept it. Imagine had they accused Germany or France of it. Or even China,it wouldn’t have been as quickly accepted,even though China ironically is still called a Communist State. So the “virus” unleashed,will not die as easily as we’d like if they fail in unseating Trump. And if they do? What do you do about dealing with a state that “hacked and subverted your political system”.And you just kicked out that state’s stooge President.I see the results of Trump being thrown out as worse for Russian/US relations than if he stays.

6. I take a more worried view of what trouble (including full blown war) the US can cause ,even while distracted. I think the US is boxing themselves into a corner with North Korea. Pretty soon,as will two bullies “shoving each other” in the parking lot. One or the other starts to swing punches at the other. There are some in the US that think its their “right” and they have the ability,to bomb countries they have arguments with.They have done that to many “weak” states over the last 25 years.And I think some “seriously” think they can bomb North Korea and the North Koreans will just take it and surrender to them. That is a blood chilling error on their parts (in my opinion). But the more the US “threatens”,the sooner they must follow through on their threats. The Trump regime,”and” the neo-cons,nether want to “lose face” in Asia. So sooner rather than later I’m afraid they will strike North Korea,and “its on”.The North Koreans will hit back with anything they can. And it spirals out of control.

If your point 1. is true, that would be a disappointment. Although in my opinion a Wapo story is not really a trustworthy reference. According to a Guardian article things look a bit different:

“[…]The agency RIA Novosti quoted an unnamed Russian source who suggested that between 200 and 300 employees would have to be either fired or sent back to the US, in a process that would be “very painful” for the Americans.[…]”

Actually the Guardian story “confirms” what I said. It says there are only around 300 US diplomats in Russia. So the numbers cut will almost certainly not be Americans. Unless the US decides to keep more of the “local” staff and send Americans home. I’m not sure about them doing that. Of course that might depend on how many locals do the actual subversion for them. And in that case they might trade Americans to keep them. But still I guess my Champagne will stay unopened after all.

I think it depends on which country an Embassy is in. But the way it seems to go is,all the menial “day to day” things. And interpreters and liaison people are usually locals. While the expensive and more secretive jobs are US nationals. Of course I’m thinking to be a “local” employed there you would almost certainly be a 5th columnist (expect for maybe a few FSB agents,lol). And used by the US for subversion of the Russian population. A lot of the work for the coup in Ukraine was done that way. Not just by the US Embassy either. But from other NATO Embassies (in particular the Netherlands,I’ve heard).So I think Russia should also demand parity with all the NATO countries Embassies as well. Anything and everything that can be easily done to stop the subversion should be done.They should have learned from Ukraine long before now.That goes for Belarus as well.Minsk should be demanding parity with all the EU,US,and Canadian,Embassies in their country.

I hadn’t forgotten. Almost every NATO/EU member was neck deep in the maidan coup. Its just that the Netherlands was one of the main ones using their Embassy to subvert Ukraine. Most of the others hid it better,using mostly NGO’s for cover.

” So what that means is that most of the over 1200 in the diplomatic mission are local Russian employee’s. And that the cuts will affect them and almost no Americans.”

I have read somewhere, probably here, that a lot of the Russian employees, too, are from the ranks of “dissenters” an dare working wtih “oppositoin” forces within Russia. Come to think of it, why else would they be hired by the American embassy?
I would assume that anyone working in the embassy has been “vetted” for the right politics—not too pro-Putin.

So, they can go and get jobs with NGOs. Until they also get thrown out.
Not that I wish harm on any Russian. But my default setting is to assume the worst of any Russian working for the US embassy.

And as for the Guardian in the UK – when they were forced to smash their computers by MI6 during the Snowden issue – that paper has never been the same. It just promotes neo liberal nonsense. And is Russophobic to the core
It actually saddens me that the Guardian lost its way – the readership decline is
reflection of this

I’m mostly using President Putin’s numbers. By his number around 1210 “people” work at the “US Mission” in Russia. He said they must cut to 455. But a story (that the Wapo used as a source. And that I checked) from 2013 said there were less than 350 American citizen diplomats in Russia. But gave a similar number of around 1200 as the total staffing at the Mission (give or take a couple). The same as Putin said.And remember in 2013 the relations between the US and Russia hadn’t gotten as bad as they’ve gotten starting in 2014. So unless over these last three years,in the middle of bad relations. Russia allowed the US to bring in hundreds of more Americans to replace some local Russian employee’s. Not a very likely happening. Then the number of Americans would still be in the 300 -350 range.If as Putin said the staff has to cut to 455. That wouldn’t affect any of the American numbers. The only way it would,would be if the US sent some Americans home to keep some local Russian employee’s on the staff.I haven’t found an actual count on the current number of actual American diplomats at the Mission. So unless someone can post a 2017 figure of US “citizens” at the Mission. We will have to go with what we know was the most recent posted count (2013). Here is what another source says as well. Granted its the NYT,but it seems to confirm what the others said also:

“It is not clear how many Americans could be expelled, if any.”

“Unlike Russian diplomatic missions in the United States, which tend not to hire Americans, the United States employs hundreds of Russians at the embassy who do tasks like translation, processing visa applications, cooking and driving.”

“They will have to fire the Russian citizens,” Mr. Frolov said. “It will create an enormous inconvenience for the U.S. Mission here, essentially slowing down the work but not affecting its core functions.”

They also had a correction to an earlier article they ran,which concerns this question:

“Correction: July 31, 2017 ”
An earlier version of this article overstated the action announced on Sunday by President Vladimir V. Putin. He said that the American diplomatic mission in Russia would have to reduce its staff, he did not say that diplomats would be expelled. The overstatement stemmed from a translation of Mr. Putin’s use of a Russian verb, which can mean to “pack up.”

Either way,its a good thing that Russia has made this move. And needs to make more.But lets not overstate its importance either. I would have preferred some targeted expulsions to go with it. And those would have been US citizens. But still,keeping the diplomats busy doing all the jobs they used to have others do for them is good too. They’ll have much less free time for spying and stirring up trouble inside Russia .

” And is Russophobic to the core
It actually saddens me that the Guardian lost its way – the readership decline is
reflection of this”

Yes whenever I see that plea for donations at the bottom of the page I think: First take down that ridiculous photo of the “resist” people (I think they have), and second, too bad you have lost your way and no one wants to giv eyou money—ore even believes that you actually need it. That, too, looks like theater, a rhetorical gesture.

Yes, but I think the real cause is the economy and debt. Remember Cheney: debt doesn’t matter IF YOU HAVE THE POWER TO IMPOSE IT (the debt) ON THE WORLD. I have heard that European banks owes the US Fed some crazy number like $60 trillion which it can’t pay back because of slow growth (for which they need to import immigrants), the US is reaching its debt limit of $20 trillion, the Fed is supposed to start selling its assets but can’t, and according to zero Hedge every one of us owes $387,000 is personal or public debt, not including corporate debt. It’s just like before WWII. We are stuck economically and HAVE TO GROW or we collapse economically, so we sanction our competitors. Look at Japan and sanctions before WWII. And we just lost the war in the Middle East to prop up the US petro-dollar. We lost not only Syria, but Turkey and China threatens with their Silk Road. We lost the Middle East, or much of it, which was the supposed source of our control of the petroleum market and the petro-dollar. What was supposed to be a melding of Middle East debtors and debt holders, the Saudis and the Rothschild Zionists, and their rule of the Middle East failed. Remember the Saudis now own the Bundesbank. They bailed it out saving it from collapse. All my favorite Liberal Democrats voted for the sanctions because they are afraid of the economic collapse of all our great Liberal programs, including Social Security. According to the Cheney / Neo-cons, if we don’t win, we lose to our debt, and we borrowed trillions from future generations so that we could feel rich. That’s my take. It’s actually the economy and the feared collapse of the West. That is why the Zionists have so much power – they are bankers and they need to get paid. This is not a kindergarten. These bankers have started and perpetrated wars for hundreds of years. The only thing new here is the world has gone nuke. So the elite are buying bunkers and everyone is living underground. This is serious shit. I agree with Paul Craig Roberts. It feels like war.

$20 trillion? You should check other sources. $20 trillion is the money the US is in debt. I guess wit was Mike Whitney who once had written an article which put the debt at a number of $45 trillion. Once RT featured another author who stated a number as large as $60 trillion. Let’s assume the real debt is near $45 trillion. That number is composed of

Detroit already filed for bankruptcy and renegotiated its debt. Maybe four months ago I had read that Houston is broke as well. The US is crumbling slowly from the inside. The game of selling loans as securities continues. If my memory doesn’t play tricks on me, then auto loans and credit card debt is sold as securities. Many people also can’t pay back their student loans.

We are stuck economically and HAVE TO GROW or we collapse economically, …

Jim, forget about the economics you once learned. You’ve been fooled like so many others. Endless growth on a finite planet isn’t possible.

… if we don’t win, we lose to our debt, and we borrowed trillions from future generations so that we could feel rich.

Mankind destroyed large parts of the environment in order to make money. Borrowing from future generations is not really possible, except you’re stuck with “old-style economic thinking”. The debt could be wiped out with a stroke of a pen (the digital debt with a keystroke).

In the past, when the economy partially reflected the creation of goods, you could save money. Nowadays you can save money as well, but it needs only one incident any you’re sitting on a stack of colorful ass wipe (that’s even too small for being useful).

Dear Saker:
Thank you for the article. I was wondering about this overwhelming vote too. It may be quite important to understand. I actually doubt it was because of a lobby (can any lobby achieve a nearly unanimous vote)? I suggest a combination of diverse factors, along those lines:

(1) Systemic.
When somebody outside a system threatens it, the system comes together against the threat ( example: “Politburo has unanimously decided that Comrade Yeltsin is politically mistaken” ) .

(2) Technical.
This is a long document with all perceived adversaries out there combined under one roof , Those roughly 180 pages were finalized, I believe, about a day from the House vote, after long negotiation and finally both factions coming together with something. The vote came under “suspension of rules” (designed to pass something really quickly and go home after a long day). — And, surprise! — it passed.

(3) Information.
If the pro-Western/anti-Putin opposition ed-in-chief Aleksei Venediktov (like him or not) is right about this, “all congressmen received an extract” from the 4 services memo, presumably concluding that Russia (attempted to) hack our elections. He goes on, “only one congressmen has requested additional information”. Based on such information (and not questioning it) , what are they supposed to do? Stand up in front of others and cameras and say, I love Russia ? http://echo.msk.ru/blog/aav/2025648-echo/

“The Americans” have voted for anti-war candidates for the last two Presidents. Obama ran based on his opposition as a state senator to the Iraq War. Trump ran saying the Iraq War was a mistake, and that the wars of regime change were mistakes, and reviving an old theme that overspending on NATO is a waste and a rip-off.

Turns out Obama was a lying con-man, and that Trump might have tried but is too incompetent and inexperienced at politics to make a difference.

But, the interesting part is how the American voters who keep saying “no” are going to react? On one hand, the Deep State has shown that democracy no longer exists in the US. But, on the other hand, the last Presidential election showed there’s a solid vote against these policies. And interestingly, they seem to have made themselves immune to the propaganda barrage by simply disbelieving everything an obvious lying mass media shovels their way. In the last election, a majority of voters did the opposite of what they were told to do. It might be wise to expect that to happen more in the future.

Any country that so calmly accepts the murder of JFK by the Fed, (for those with brains it was immediately obvious), I can’t honestly see them being bothered about the loss of an idiot like Trump at the hands of Congress (or anyone else for that matter).

The USA was only ever an extension of Great Britain and her bankers. These bankers, who had funded Cromwell’s English civil war, had by 1694 almost total control of the State after the loss of half of Britain’s trading fleet, and half her trading goods, in just one storm at sea.

The entire slave trade was funded and controlled both in Africa and the Colonies (soon to become the USA), by these very same banking people, who for the most part today constitute the Neocons.

The PGU and Directorate S were absolutely spot on about Britain being a greater threat than the US, mostly because the British Establishment that had been in power since Cromwell’s demise had total power over the US and still does to a great extent today.

The UK and the EU are to all intents and purposes the private fiefdom of one banking family. It is this family that owns one third of the Fed and who uses the CIA as its private (drug dealing) army. They also own the City of Jerusalem which they bought off the Ottoman’s in 1829 for cash.

Trump or no Trump the US is a disaster waiting to happen. It and its people have been farmed, exploited and taxed almost to extinction over the last 350 years. Its waters are being poluted by fracking, its military is armed with obsolete weaponry and its manufacturing ability has been squandered on a last ditch profits gamble with the Chinese.

Just like the dead parrot in the Monty Puthon comedy sketch where the parrot was described as an ‘ex-parrot’, so too is the USA an ‘ex-nation’. It is too late, the citizens of the USA are brain dead sheep brainwashed by the lies of capitalism, greed and the American dream. The USA is an ex-nation. It is now just a question of ‘when’ the idiots at the US helm press the nuclear button, not ‘if’. QED.

I love the article, (typos included).
As I read/write in response, I listen to (the unfortunately) NeoCon-overrun CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), slamming Trump, now on the firing of Anthony Scaramucci, after ten days; it seems to me a good thing.
Perhaps the arrival of John Kelly signals a turn around of sorts, getting down to obvious and pragmatic business immediately.On Putin:
The directors of the Empire, and the puppet stooges in power in their host countries, seem to conspire to make Putin look better and better.
One knows when one reads of Putin’s naivete, or weakness, etc… one is reading delusional propaganda of the empire, and in alignment with your article, towards, some, as yet unclear ends.
I am most awed by the ‘turning’ of Erdogan within a 24 month time frame. This clear and decisive victory is a very significant milestone in the ‘breakout’ of Russia, and I believe it will eventually be recognized as historically seminal in the initiation of the empire’s implosion.

But Saker: will the empire be significantly weakened over a 20 year time horizon by the implosion of the U.S.A.?
Won’t it simply refocus it’s malevolent efforts in western Eurasia?
It seems that this is the trend.
Dismantling the gatekeepers of the vast African/Middle Eastern/Asian migrants (i.e. Libya, Syria, Turkey, etc.) has allowed a flood of migrants, creating a rich base for fomenting xenophobic paranoia, and potential for advancing the Empire’s key objectives.
Can this be stopped?
It seems unlikely.

On Trump:
What possibility is there for a fight back?
Do you agree that Trump should NOT sign this ridiculous bill?
How come he isn’t using his stream of 140 characters to highlight the in-progress coup d’etat?

I agree, also, that the people in the U.S.A. while varied, include many, many really cool, interesting, and mostly benevolent people.

I’m always looking for methods for the people to fight back, expose the empire, and take on the stooges of the Empire.

[sidebar: now we have the CBC news at six outlining the evil dictator Maduro, and analysis of the ‘impending’, ‘required’ sanctions to come]

I invite the braintrust in this community to sketch courses of action to address the 0.1% tyranny, and others to respectfully and constructively offer critique to those potential alternatives for resistance.

I thank you again for the courageous writing and the platform to know of alternative perspectives.

Its always the same. Human nature gives only one way out. A Spartacus slave revolt, peasant Jacquerie,1789 the “a Terreur”,peoples revolution,whatever you want to call it. It ends with mass rebellion and the slaughter of elites and their supporters. Sometimes they succeed at least for a time. Sometimes they fail totally,and are drowned in a regime terror. But that is the way all these situations end. Or at least they have for the last few thousand or so years. I don’t see our modern age changing that just because its “our age”. People back then thought the same about “their age” too. Strangely though it seems its always “little things” that set them off. People might dream (or have nightmares depending on your side) about them for years,and nothing happens. And then some small “event” sparks the flames,and they rise up,consuming everything around them. The worst the system gets. With the current elite “hogging” more and more of the wealth in societies. The sooner that “small spark” with catch alight.

I understand the cynicism, and trend lines of known history (even if one accounts for the position of the survivors), especially in light of the new virtual-perception-control technology and penetration.
I also understand why Pirouette above, would write “… the citizens of the USA are brain dead sheep brainwashed by the lies of capitalism, greed and the American dream …”, unfortunately.

Yet, I feel, that somewhere out there there is another way.
We (another different minority) have never had an information/idea exchange mechanisms as we have here with this web site, and others, like limited telepathy.
I’m still hoping.

I’m still hoping that someone has some more ideas.

With the discrepancy/dissonance between waking consciousnesses (much more susceptible to the current perception-control techniques) and the other issues that have been lodged/hidden in the sub-consciousnesses, there must be an opportunity to spark extremely uncomfortable internal conflicts within a potentially large proportion of the population..
Something viral.

Almost anything is doable if the “will” is there to do it. But the problem in the West is the lack of “will” to change.But as I said when the revolt comes finally, it will bring that change,just at a large cost.

Historybook the crystalball of our future. People of all times said “this time its different”, “we are smarter now learning from our mistakes”. Still history repeats itself. And it will continue. So focus is on postcrash.

Dear Saker,
Thank you for this latest essay, as for all the others. I left the USA permanently over 17 years ago, so I don’t share your optimism about Americans. The point of my comment, however, is that I think I’m biased: I spent too much time among the Democrat liberals (mainly in the Pacific NW but not exclusively there). They (the great unwashed Hillary crowd) are long past redemption and understanding. The rest of the country, however, may in fact be a different story, as you point out. I want you to be right; I fear you may not.

That said, several have commented on the Rothschild professional war apparatus and its historical penchant for making trouble. Could you add your thoughts please?

One of your best, Saker, thank you. Although I have a much more mixed view and experience of the American people, I applaud the great heart and fine sentiment you display.

You seem to have called Trump right since Flynn’s firing. And I continue to hope some good might come of his fight against the bad guys even though I suspect it’s all kabuki or it doesn’t really matter because he’s not going up against the main pillars of the empire (the Fed, the military, the Izzies etc.). Which means it is kabuki.

And yet I still hope. I think this process, whether a successful fight back or impeachment, will trigger a deeply transformative time in America. After which, it’s just possible that things might start to improve. Why? Because China and Russia, though no doubt imperfect, are fundamentally sane and fundamentally moving forward, indeed I believe building the next great civilisation of Eurasia, something slowly building since the early middle ages. That something compelled inferior European mariners to explore and then mine gold and silver from what they called ‘the New World’ but what we now know is in fact a rather Old World (whose populations in 1492 considerably out-numbered the Europeans, and whose cities were also far larger). This gold and silver was used in order to establish trade with India and China, the richest zones in the world, since the Europeans had no goods to offer being so far behind.

When the gold and silver ran out in the 1700’s, a man contracted with an engineer to invent the Spinning Jenny in order to produce 100% cotton and sell into the Indian market whose manufacturers were housewives. The purpose of the Spinning Jenny was to be able to sell cloth, thanks to technology-driven high volume arbitrage, cheaper than the locals could. They succeeded. Which helped beget the British Empire (along with the machine gun).

And so the Industrial Revolution was born – mainly to have something to sell into Asia after the Americas ran out of gold and silver. Our western civilisational leap forward was, ab initio, globalist in nature, or at least about world trade flows. But we have pursued colonialist models which essentially try to extract as much benefit from subject zones as possible and maintain as much power and control in small pockets of influence, which nowadays has developed into the infamous 1%.

The new Eurasian civilisation proposed by the Russia-China more-than-mere-alliance and more-like-marriage is a world historical game-changer. They make deals which improve things for all involved both economically and culturally. This civilisational initiative will uplift the entire Eurasian central island and all countries therein, and of course they no doubt would love Europe to get on board so that from Lisbon to Beijing, there will be an interlinked multi-national, dynamic, peaceful, innovative, positive and basically sane new civilisation that does not depend upon channeling all power and influence into a profit-seeking 1% centralising all currency/debt creation, all energy technologies, all agro-business, big pharma and all the rest of it. Their days are numbered.

But the point being: since the Eurasian Civilisation movement is essentially positive, there are no great monsters out there; so as long as the Neocon Beast can be contained, America is in no danger of being blown up or destroyed whilst it goes through a long overdue Second Republic phase which she is not quite yet ready for, but which Trump’s reign might well trigger as his very existence is forcing the neocons to overplay their hand.

If Eurasia was neurotic and aggressive, then such a period in the US would be dangerous for everyone, conflict would be inevitable. This way, we have a chance.

And I really like your point about how the neocons aren’t all the bright.

Which is why I still hope that Team Trump can somehow blow the whole thing wide open somehow. I don’t think they are going to be as easy to overthrow as most seem to think….

In a thread of brilliant comments, CaperAsh, I like this one very much indeed. Thank you. I like the world you see, and the one you envision as possible.

As to Saker’s point that you remark on, about neocons not being too bright – evil itself is stupid. In a universe that is sacred on its face, by all the definitions of the terms, to choose the profane is a choice of the worst ignorance.

And so, as Tolkien observed, evil is often done badly. The neocons may have calculation and even a certain cunning but this is not the same as intelligence, not at all the same. Intelligence requires openness to the unknown.

Evil is a stupid choice, a weak choice giving in to the downward path of least resistance. No wonder that its schemes fail so frequently.

“Except for Rand Paul and Bernie Sanders, every single US Senator voted in favor of these sanctions.”

Makes sense for Paul, being a non interventionist, both econ and mil, but Sanders is a mild Russophobe in his talk on Russia related things, who also has a history of israeli subservience, so a surprise on his part.

Also, the israel lobby is most definitely the israel lobby, the neocons are subordinates of the zionazis. Besides being expendable cannon fodder, neocons are mostly Catholic fascists, not Jewish fascists, though the latter definitely lead the neocon ovidian flock.

I agree with VT about Sanders – I hate the guy – and there’s an interesting site called The Sane Progressive – interesting woman who worked REALLY hard in the Sander campaign and she is for all the right things – Cynthia McKinney and her are friends –

And the Sane Progressive is extremely disillusioned with Bernie Sanders – its interesting to hear her rant about him – because she was there – she got 10,000 signatures in a couple of days asking Bernie to keep up the work during the nomination – and he didn’t even answer her calls and her emails or the petition – ignored it completely

I agree, Sane Progressive has some of the best analysis. The only issue is that her videos are rather long, and mixed with rant, (which I share) but it leaves the average uneducated liberal/progressive mystified or even offended. Truth hurts.

The thing is, she has 40,000 subscribers, which constitutes only a tiny percentage of the whole population. Were her viewers far more numerous, it could be a movement, but until she reaches 200,000 or more, she will be seen as ‘fringe’, even though what she says represents ‘core’ truth.

Anyone “possibly” thinking that the Trump/Pence regime will be friendly with Russia should see Pence’s comments in Estonia today:

“A strong and united NATO is more necessary today than at any point since the collapse of communism a quarter-century ago and no threat looms larger in the Baltic states than the specter of aggression from your unpredictable neighbor to the east,”

Pence is the neo-con “minder” they stuck with Trump to control him. If Trump is kicked out President “I’m a neo-con” Pence will head the US regime. It really does amaze me how anyone can doubt we are leading straight into a war.Because of insane leaders in the US,I see no other ending result.The only question is “when,how bad,and who wins”.

He baby sat trump in his first phone call with Putin, that should have clued everybody in to what the trump fraudulentcy was really a front for. Trump makes the populist speeches, pence & co.run the israeli pindo colony. Trump was simply a con to slip in zionazi alt regime 2, under pence, who, and all the other republican israeli quislings were calculated to be losers against the other israeli quisling freakshow, clinton (zionazi first choice).

Uncle Bob – Pence is more than just “the” overlord; he’s a pedophile just like Cheney – wearing a smile instead of a curled snarled lip. Search – Pence + Pedophile

Very sick Psycho Pedophile VP’s Controllers – Sicko Joe Biden, Monster George H. W. Bush, children were actually brought to the White House when he was VP. See – “Conspiracy of Silence” Franklin Cover-Up

While there’s no end to neocon mischief, including in the instance of these sanctions, I had thought it was self-evident that the bill was pure political payoff to the natural gas industry by trying to separate Russia from its European market. American frackers move in and take over the market for twice the price. Business as usual on Capitol Hill.

One has to ask where these neo cons believe their loyalty lies-I know, the answer is obvious but reading Saker’s article, their loyalty is not necessarily to Isreal. Romney, he is just prostitute, sold to the highest bidder.

Bravo! Yes, America/Americans are the last hope to save the Planet from the Demonic Secret Elite trying to destroy any possibility of good relations between America and Russia. The reason is that it wrecks their plan for World NWO Government of the Five Eyes. Milner’s LSD tripping Kindergarten and their Hallucinations can be stopped if Americans can see through the bullshit and propaganda and understand that Russia and Russians are their friends and not their enemies. We have millions-fold more people than the Secret Elite and can pull this off if we can come together. Lincoln and Czar Alexander (http://www.heymiller.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Lincoln-czar-2.jpg) figured it out so it isn’t hard.

Thanks Saker!
You warm my heart… I feel the same way about USA. I’m Canadian and lived for a while in USA.
Now in Switzerland watching…
Please, check out with Cynthia McKinney and Robert David Steele are trying to do with putting on #UNRIG movement.
Listening to Cynthia McKinney sounds like listening to you. And they have uncovered the Zionist neocons and AIPAC (don’t know the right acronym) as one of the Deep State “foreign influence” in the US government.
Something to watch. If Americans are mad like hell, #UNRIG looks like a very good movement to TAKE BACK THEIR COUNTRY!
Blessings to you Saker… and all you, followers of the Saker.

After the most recent round of US sanctions, I wonder if there are any Russians who still want to cuddle up to the Americans and be accepted as the USA’s “partners” (i.e. vassals).

LOL.

The Americans are essentially a nation of parasites with an inbred sense of economic entitlement.

As they feel their God-given right to dominate and rape the world slipping away–all to prop up their their precious US Way of Life(tm)–the Americans are increasingly becoming unhinged and soiling their XXL-sized panties in fits of impotent anger.

The US Government’s slapping sanctions on Russia is merely the latest example of this mentality.

The cult-like worship of the American war criminal military; a pathetic xenophobia blaming foreigners and immigrants for the failures of America’s free market capitalist system; and a messianic nationalist ambition for greatness–these traits reflect not only Donald Trump and his minions but also this deeper American national psychosis that go well *beyond* the Neocons or any other political lobby.

Possessed by a quasi-religious belief in their moral righteous as the Land of the Free, Beacon of Liberty, Exceptional Nation, Leader of the Free World, blah, blah, blah, the Americans are not really a country, as they are a Jim Jones-style religious cult.

In short, America is a religion and has been one since it was spawned over 200 years ago–a religion that today increasingly shows itself to be a false faith.

As the below article by James Carden states,

“The premise, shared by heroes of the Left and Right, is this: America, a “shining city on a hill” (John Winthrop, later vulgarized by Ronald Reagan) “remains the one indispensable nation” (Barack Obama) and deprived of America’s “benevolent global hegemony” (Robert Kagan) the world will surely collapse into anarchy.

This strain of messianic thinking has deep roots in the psyche of the American establishment and so, in a sense, neoconservatism, which is really little more than a latter-day Trotskyist sect, is as American as apple pie.

Common though it is to trace, or conflate, the rise of American messianism to 1898 when the country first emerged as a global power, the cult of “American exceptionalism” has its roots in Puritan theology.”

“After the most recent round of US sanctions, I wonder if there are any Russians who still want to cuddle up to the Americans and be accepted as the USA’s ‘partners’ (i.e. vassals).”

The fanaticism of official US Russophobia — not least visible in the West’s putrid Ukro colony — has had the most welcome effect of uniting the Russians against the West in general and the US in particular. The Russian Liberals today are minuscule in numbers but, sadly, not yet defeated.

“As they feel their God-given right to dominate and rape the world slipping away–all to prop up their their precious US Way of Life(tm)–the Americans are increasingly becoming unhinged and soiling their XXL-sized panties in fits of impotent anger.”

Scientifically accurate conclusion — hats off. It’s quite hilarious how these supposedly ‘rugged individualists’ are, in fact, nothing but royalists-on-steroids. If there were the slightest substance to the fairy-tales of Pindo aversion to ‘Big Government’, imperialist defeats and set-backs — in Syria, Russia, China, wherever — would be greeted by joy in the US. Reality proves a different matter, to put it mildly.

Lastly, James Carden’s assessment of the neocons,

“This strain of messianic thinking has deep roots in the psyche of the American establishment and so, in a sense, neoconservatism, which is really little more than a latter-day Trotskyist sect, is as American as apple pie.”

is absolutely correct. The neocons have updated Trotskyism to contemporary world politics by substituting Putin for Stalin, and Russia for the USSR. The Western Left — of which Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are two most distinguished US members — is, consequently, not too happy with today’s resurgent Russia and her people rallying around Vladmir Putin.

@Anonymus
The US is a European Bastard gone berserk. It was founded by FreeMasons (Jefferson and Washington), this (directed by the chosen ones of course) cult had also already infested much of Europe, but foremost France which in the year of the revolution had over 600 Lodges and over 20’000 new
entries that year.
Then the French Revolution was NOT a Revolution but a classical Coup d’Etat directed by the Freemasons, which hired paid rabble to march to the Bastille to free some seven Prisoners some even refused to be freed !!!!! And then these Beasts unleashed hell on Earth onto France – pure literal Hell !!!! – Bestiality – Cannibalism – THAT WAS THE FRENCH REVOLUTION ! An infestation !
1789 was the year when finally all lights went out in Europe and they never went on ever since.
ALL a big miserable LIE !!

Yes, the man is willing to put his signature on the text which represents an illegal coup d’état against this own authority and against the Constitution which he swore to uphold.

With this in mind, the Russian reaction is quite simple and understandable: they have given up on Trump.”

This being the case then Trump is also culpable in this trampling of the US Constitution. A true patriot would have defended the Constitution tooth and nail from its enemies; but Trump simply folded. As Saker notes the coup is now complete and the liberal-totalitarian project is still on track. Where it is headed is anyone’s guess.

We’ll have to wait and see. If the EU wants to cut its own throat ,they will. There is no way around that. But then maybe Russia will fully understand that the EU countries are a lost cause. And do what she should have done over a decade ago. Fully turn to other markets. And more importantly re-industrialize her own country. Those two things would make the EU trade meaningless for Russia. Sure it will be difficult at first. But not more difficult than having to endure a permanent blackmail from EU countries. And once the fear of losing the EU trade is over. Russia will be able to follow her own interests fully ,i.e freeing Ukraine from the junta.And standing up to NATO’s aggression on her borders. One would assume that would be self-evident by now. But they say “hope springs eternal”,so it must not be.

Russia is not waiting for the inevitable from EU/US. At this time there are at least two very large projects extending pipelines from Russia to China and more are planned. Within 5 or 6 years Russia won’t give a toss if EU gets totally shut off from Russia supplies.

China is a huge and growing economy that is energy hungry and will be for many years to come. Russia will tap that market and when all is said and done I have no doubts that China will take every cubic centimeter of gas Russia can supply in addition to every drop of POL with the added benefit of all payments are made in Rubles and Renmimbi.

Unless EU policies are totally reversed, and I don’t see that happening, EU may well be left out in the cold, figuratively and literally.

In this context, is interesting how Macron is dealing with the facts. Some time ago, he invited the both conflicting leaders of Libya (the one from Bengazi and the other from Tripoli) in France. Libya has the gas and the oil and Macron has that in his mind, therefore the “reconciliation” effort made by him and underlined by the press, leaving the real intention and pursuit of the discussions totally out. Because it’s about oil and gas. This makes me think, that Macron has not the best intentions toward Russia. To make things more complicated, the Libyan general in power in Bengazi, has good relations with the Russians. I’m also curious on how long will have to wait for the official response from Germany. Turkey is the main player in the South-East regarding the gas and oil transit pipelines to mainland Europe. They have reached a deal with Russia but now, with the US sanctions being put in action, how will react Turkey ? The dream of pipeline through Syria (according to the Empire’s will) is over. Will the Empire block the gas from Turkey to Europe again ? if they continue this way, yes, and will put pressure on Turkey to make a deal. By the way, what is needed for the EU is exactly the higher gasoline and gas prices…

Notwithstanding the many good points that have already been made in various comments on this excellent article I still wonder what could be the benefit for 95 (or 98) congress men and women to follow the dictates of the ‘Lobby’, no matter how it is defined and adopt these sanctions. Or, rather make this declaration of war against Russia and Europe.

For the destruction of Europe it is a double-edged sword: hooking small European nations on Russia’s borders on US gaz and destroying the (real) manufacturing economies of the larger European nations.

The article quoted from Strategic Culture Foundation is actually incomplete: The APS stocks in Middle Norway, Tromsdalen en Frigaard both in the Troendelag, near Vaerness and Oerland airports, are not mentioned. SCF mentions Vardoe oya (at gate to Barentszee), but there is no mention of the cave stocks at Andenes (Vesteraalen) or the new to build Bodoe airbase (for F22 Raptor and F 35). The purchase of the 56 JSF’s (F35) is mentioned but the purchase of new generation Orion reconnaissance planes (Poseidon?) and the subs are not. Norway is weaponised to the teeth by and for the US at the expense of the Norwegian tax payer.

Big Oil is certainly also behind the Neocon as with the shale business they are close to bankrupcy. Should the shale business go down the drain, it would be worse than the Lehman Brothers collapse. There is an alliance between the crazy Neocon and the crooks involved in the shale business.

There will be no way out of this crisis before the implosion of the Western Financial business.

“I predict that the Neocon-crazies will not stop until they impeach Trump. I furthermore predict that the USA will not launch any major military interventions (if only because the USA has run out of countries it can safely and easily attack)” Saker I would not be so sure about that , unfortunately. It seems that the next target in “big need of democracy” is Venezuela.

It’s been a while since I looked in on the Vineyard, yet between times it seems to have become even better. A penetrating analysis of the current state if affairs which has clarified a number of issues for me and I suspect, other readers too. I’ve long believed that the Balkanisation of the US is inevitable; there are simply too many contradictions culturally and politically for the US to survive in it’s present form. I never thought that this would happen in my lifetime -I’m mid 70’s – now I’m not so sure.

The only thing keeping the US together as a country is the dollar I think. If the US loosses the dollar hegemony then it means it has to pay for its bills but there is no money out there, only debt then hell will break loose.

Maybe the dollar, and, my theory,the fact that the USA is big.
There is a lot of space, and this means the people also have more “personal” space than citizens of many other couintries. If Americans were as densely packed as, say, the Dutch or the Japanese, all hell would have broken loose long before now. However, living in those wide open spaces is dependent on the personal vehicle, so gasoline prices must stay low.
Otherwise, social revolution or collapse or something.

Excellent analysis, as usual.
Tho I would like to volunteer to proof read your articles before publishing. Your syntax does result in some confusion on times.
Would feel honoured to be able to help out in any way.

Thanks for the very kind offer, but I simply don’t have the time to include a proofreader in my posts as I do everything pressed for time. It is not perfect, but it is what it is – substance over form…
But thanks for the kind offer to help!
Cheers,
The Saker

Yes, the man is willing to put his signature on the text which represents an illegal coup d’état against this own authority and against the Constitution which he swore to uphold.”

Trump could veto, it will be overridden, but it will show he has principles. Just about everybody is pushing the man to sign, zio-gay media are unanimous he must. So is the domestic pindo political noise. They are creating a situation where they make the reality. If he signs, he shows he has no principles, IE: he’s just another neocon type. Trump ran on a platform claiming to be different from clinton. If trump does not veto that bill, he will remove all doubt that he is different from clinton. Whether he vetos it or signs it will be a litmus test of whether the man is genuine or a fraud. Whether he is a neocon, like the pindo conservative talk radio network, which back him, or whether he actually is something different.

The sanctions are great for Russia – I don’t see the problem. Trump’s signing the sanctions is a win-win for all. Well… a win for Russia, perhaps a political safe strategy for Trump, but for the kindergarteners, a win in the short term but a big loss in the long term, as it will only strengthen Russia. But kindergarteners are very short-sighted!

I will add that, in my humble opinion, I cannot underestimate the importance of these sanctions for Russia. Adversity is excellent for nation-building. Prosperity, especially for the fragile Russia of today, could easily lead to a laziness and lethargy that would return it to the self-destructive ways of the 1990’s.

Nice! Also the Russian’s answer is still to come: the worst nightmare for the bankers/zionists is Russia to place moratorium(no pay)on all debt from private and government sectors ($800bln) until sanctions are lifted and West has paid $500bln in compensation. Has been discussed in Russia when the first sanctions where imposed.Obama and the rest where pissing their pants at the time. That alone would have brought the World into economic collaps. It didn’t occured. Now is the second chance.

To the best of my knowledge Russia does not have an $800,000,000,000 debt, private and/or public, with USA or anybody else. Links and verification, please. And WaPo, Times London and Burundi Tattler don’t count.

The ruling class is deeply split – “globalists” v. “America First,” determined by economic interests. The conflict involves neocon-crazies, Democrats, Republicans, etc., but cannot be resolved at those levels. It will continue. I think the conflicting, far from being settled, is becoming deeper.

Having a most limited understanding of the usa-mainly news including RT and their programmes , from programmes like swamp loggers, repo,hardcore pawn in Detroit , Judge Judy and similar-sighs- I can only sadly see a society under enormously fragile stresses and strains….from trying-struggling to earn a living, faced with imminent desparation, sink or swim , debt, unable to comprehend their place and how to make their way in this modern world.

What a beautiful analysis, dear Saker. Thank you for that, it put a smile on my face.

I completely agree with ‘kindergarten on LSD’, so obsessed with impeaching Trump that they forget to see that they are on a course to hurt themselves badly.

However, I have some side thoughts.

In the first place the Deep State is wicked. Maybe they do see it.

Also, concerning ‘not winning in Afghanistan’ is maybe the wrong term. The USA is not there for ‘winning’. They are there for looting. Not only are the American troops (and more contractors!) heavily involve in lucrative heroin trafficking, they are there also for looting the country of its rich amounts of minerals, so called REE’s (rare earth elements), now mainly coming from China. Afghanistan is e.g. the ‘Saudi Arabia of lithium’.
In this respect US forces are no better than Somali pirates.

Zbigniev Brzezinski is already gone, but I do hope that from a small window from hell he will see to his horror that the exact scenarios are unfolding now that he always warned about for decades: the cooperation between Russia and China (Brzezinski was of the opinion that it would never happen, while they would never really trust each other), and the likely growing cooperation between Germany and Russia.

I think it is morally unjust to wish illnesses to other people, but I wouldn’t mind that Mother Nature would speed up a little bit, as to reach that McCain can hold hands with Brzezinski.

Finally, I’m quite curious how long the toxic marriage between the USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia will hold. The situation in Saudi Arabia is interesting, with a new clown prince that messes up everything, and a probably deeply divided royal family. I wouldn’t count out some intrigues, fights and maybe a countercoup.
If this grows ugly it might even result in a fall of the House of Saud, thereby killing the petrodollar.

If you are curious about the way the US plans to handle the Russian gas vs US gas to the EU question. Look no further than what Ukraine has done with their coal situation. Ukraine is in the situation of the “coals to Newcastle” quote. A country with a lot of coal of its own. And bordering on areas with huge coal supplies. For political reasons (hello EU) they won’t buy Donbass or Russian coal. But instead are “importing” coal from thousands of miles away in the US.The price they are paying is $115 a ton for US coal. I haven’t seen the Russian coal prices. But considering the cost of coal in other countries I’m pretty sure its much less than the US price. The prices I’ve seen are European coal price of $56.64,Australian coal at $80.12,Japan coal at $90.84,and the highest inside US price at $52.70. The price Ukraine is paying is almost $25 per ton more than the highest World price if they got it in Japan.That type of a “deal” is what the US would like to impose on the EU with US Lng. Cut off cheap Russian gas “politically”,and “stick it to” the EU with high prices for US gas.Welcome to being a vassal to the US:

Your comment suggests that you think the EU will just “suck it up” and do what they are told and I fear you are probably right.
When have they ever opposed anything the US has demanded even going so far as joining in with it’s wars?
I think in Germany, it is fair to say, there is an awakening going on that the best future for Germany is in the OBOR project.
However the people who think this don’t make the decisions.
I wish they would wake up but past history tells us the chances of the EU defying the globalists power base, the US, are infinitesimally small.

As I said, as an after-effect. And as to the number KIA, when shall we begin the count? 1914 seems about right to me…but surely 1944-45, more or less, with the meeting of the Red and (shall we say “white” for the anglosaxon forces?) White Army at the Elbe…

The number is not relevant to the process, only to the political after-effect, and to the poor people who will be ruined…

Tactical doctrine for Red Army is public…start with a dozen n-events in kt range along the barbarossa line on a map and check the wind patterns…a rough estimate is easy…

@T1
Germany is a lost cause under Merkel. Atleast for another four years nothing will really change, Angie would love it to get the whip every month the latest from Hillary, but Trump is also good.
The Germans are in a very deep trauma still, first they must deconstruct the whole kosher-programming they get over every channel round the clock, which is not easy. Most oscillate between being kosher Consumer slaves happy indifferent to politics as long they get a meal a day and have their car. And then there are the Left Anarchos who live on a purely synthetic planet created exclusively for them at Universities, and then you have those who dream of Hitler’s coming back. And then there is a tiny minority (< 10%) who is national conservative, roughly on the line of the Afd (the new 'Nazi' Party, which is fearmongered in all MSM), which basically want roll back the EU to something like Adenauer Germany, foreign Policy questions are only touched on the side. There's only a vague 'good relations with our neighbours'. All of it is far in dream wonderland, because Angie Merkel (Adolf Hitler & Eva Braun's Child !) is appointed as lifetime chancellor by the Satanist – Elite in Germany and abroad. Germany is a lost cause as is most of Europe – certainly Western Europe – all fully under tribe control.

Since I’m more familiar with what’s going on in Germany, let me go into that.

Never forget that Angela Merkel is a former communist party member on propaganda from the DDR. She’s an ‘apparatschik’, childless (many rumours that her marriage is fake, and that she is a hardcore lesbian – but doesn’t this count for Hillary as well? – frankly I don’t care sh*t with whom she shares her bed) and, more important, a rigorous powerbroker. She has eliminated every possible political opponent.
Also interesting, is that she has gotten an award from the Coudenhove-Kalergi foundation, and she is on the payroll of George Soros.

The strange thing is, that Germans are hardcore political correct when they vote, yet almost all know that they are lied to and fooled. Somewhere this is going to break. History has taught us that it may take some years, but it is not a good idea to wake up the Teutonic Giant.

Are there hopes? I think there are. She cannot ignore the large German industries. Also, she may have silenced the German MSM, but Germans don’t believe them anymore.

I have nothing with this party, I consider Sarah Wagenknecht as a kind of strange woman, but regularly she has interesting speeches. She grills Merkel. Now look at her. With her shoulders hanging deeply down.

I may want to add something to my post (a reaction to the comment of @zena).

Read this (transcripted) open letter of a former refugee to Angela Merkel:

[i]”Dear Frau Merkel,

I have questions, and I hope you have the answers to them. Many have warned that with Islam, terror will come to Germany, and that the people who come here, who are let into the country uncontrolled by you, will bring their wars from their home countries with them, and that they will in just as uncontrolled a way attack each other here in Germany as they do back home.

Today, on the 28th of July, 2017, again, an attack took place in Hamburg against innocent people, and again, the attacker yelled Allah Akhbar, god is great. Again, innocent people have died in the name of Allah, just as millions of people have died for 1,400 years. Thirty-one years ago, I fled from exactly these people and came to Germany.”

“Therefore, when I say that I see my persecutors on the streets, that is not a joke. It is a fact. As a small child I experienced the revolution in Iran; I experienced the war; I have seen things on the streets that no child should see.

And today I am a mother myself. Today, day by day I fight against the fear that my daughter, that any of our children, may become witness of what I experienced, what happened in my childhood. Thirty-one years ago Germany offered me protection. I had packed away everything, and I was of the opinion that it was all behind me. I have built a new life for myself.

And now, the exact same thing creeps up on us here in Germany as what happened in Iran almost 40 years ago. The country is being Islamized; our freedoms are being limited; freedom of opinion doesn’t even exist anymore, anyway. Freedom of speech? It’s fake. All that’s left of it is the name. And I cannot depend on our democracy anymore, either. Of that, too, all that’s left is its name.

I do not know what the reason the German government has for destroying their own country, and abandoning all regard and consideration for their own culture. We constantly hear “refugees welcome”, but what about us? What about those refugees that found their way to Germany many years ago, and built a new life for themselves?

Are we not good enough for you anymore? Are we being traded in like pieces of furniture that you don’t like anymore, for new refugees? Are our lives again being put in danger because new refugees are now coming? Not unlike the way in which an Islamic man just exchanges his wife for another, a younger wife that he’s more interested in? Are we not humans? Are Germans not humans? Don’t they have any rights anymore?

If you are of the opinion that the country should go down the drain, well then please, I would like to know now what should become of us, and what should become of our children. And why, after 31 years, I again have to experience things that I experienced way back in Iran.”[/i]

I want to emphasize, that these opinions are largely agreed upon also by native Germans. More than you might think.
What many do not know, that the reasons behind this is simply citizens exchange (‘Umvolkung’), a vision from Soros who has bought Merkel.

Do you know how she reacted on such critisism? She has said in an internal governmemnt session about this: ‘Ist mir egal, ob ich schuld am Zustrom der Flüchtlinge bin, nun sind sie halt da’ (I don’t care that I’m guilty for the flood of refugees, now they are simply there).

Although I still have some hopes, Merkel herself doesn’t care sh*t. History will ordeal very harshly about her. Even that will not bother this infertile human.

(in this genderneutral times I have to be careful, before I get whining SJW’s after me, dashing from their ‘safe spaces’. I was raised in times when you were ‘male’ or ‘female’. Nowadays you have to choose between male/female/both/neither/don’t know yet/something else/Conchita Wurst).

I guess even when Germans kick her out of the country, she will shrug her shoulders, lay down on a tropical island, surrounded by Africans with big d*cks (or breasts, whatever), who constantly whisper in her ear ‘Sie sind maechtig, Sie sind geil’ (you are so powerful, you are so beatiful), on which she starts to giggle ‘oh yes, hihihihi’.

I have once spoiled the lunch appetite of my German coworkers with this picture.

So yes, I still have hopes, but I fear that the odds are somewhat more to the opinion of @Zena.

This seems to have more than one meaning…but my French is weak…one meaning is that barbarossa2.0 is days away, I think he means that…but also a war within in US State and Elite apparatus…why not several wars?

A very thoughtful article. Yes I fully agree that like all ordinary folks the ordinary Americans too are nice people. We have personally experienced this. Like all normal people they aspire prosperity for them and they are aware too that wars bring doom, destruction and strife, but not properity. Unfortunately, they are governed by a clique that cares not for them let alone the others. It’s as well the Russia is standing up to their bafoonery.

Trump holds the winning hand, he’s just not ready to play it yet. What is it, you ask?

All he has to do is reopen the 9/11 investigation because 16 years has not diminished the pain of a treasonous government against its own people. Buildings blown up and people murdered by the Deep State cannot be washed away by time. Remember, there is no statute of limitations on capital crimes.

Reopening the investigation will strike fear in the hearts of the perpetrators who partook in those heinous crimes. If the national media tries to play it down, the American public will have another reason to trash the corporate controlled, television and newspaper industry.

Every American will be on board with that and like a tsunami it will sweep over the corrupt members of the U.S. Congress who remained silent during that fateful time in our history. Bush ’43, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Israel, AIPAC, ADL, the national media CEO’s, etc. will be sweating blood. Suddenly Russiagate will disappear from the news and the country will stand together because this treachery and the death of nearly 3,000 citizens has not been forgotten nor justice served.

Just do it President Trump and watch the rats leave our shores for a safer harbor. Then go and prosecute each one and sentence them for life to Guantanamo Bay. Better still, ask France to reopen the penal colony, Devils Island and let them rot in tropical Hell.

Great idea.
But how can any good ideas get through to Trump?
I think there is merit in placing an ad in the NYT and WaPo.
I just copyedited a book about how successful this strategy can be in influencing public officials, etc. But it takes some $$$$$.

“The Israel Lobby has very little interest in Israel as a country or, for that matter, for the Israeli people. If anything, the Israel Lobby ought to be called the “Neocon Lobby”. Furthermore, we also have to keep in mind that the Neocon Lobby is unlike any other lobby in the list above. For one thing, it does not represent US interests. Neither does it represent the interests of Israel” saker

what?

of course the neocons do not represent u.s./gentile interests it is the jew lobby and it is 100% for the jew state. neocons are jews. there are jew pets who follow orders and a few strut around as if they are in charge. but it is a collective of jews for jewry of which israel is the armed wing and the safe house for jew criminals of all sorts.

Factually incorrect article. You have no idea what is in the American constitution. What Congress did was foolish, but in no way unconstitutional. And you failed to discern the obvious reasons for the sanctions. It is about oil and gas exports to Europe. Washington wants to replace Moscow as the supplier. And, it looks like Washington will succeed. Moscow is losing, and losing badly, and you know it.

Isn’t the separation of powers in the Constitution?
It does seem weird that Congress has NOT exercised its war-declaring powers—has abrograted that responsibility and let the President declare war unilaterally. It has not used its power of the purse to stop illegal wars.

Yet I thought that foregin policy was technically the purview of the executive.
So, the congress is forcing the pres to accede to an economic and foreign policy.
But perhaps these “separations” are just traditional and not actually enshrined in the Constitution.

But also don’t these extraterritorial sanctions violate various international laws and trade agreements? It sure seems like Europe is now getting the “Cuban” treatment.

Re the gas issue, not so sure that the Germans etc. are going to roll over on this. At least from what I have read at Der Spiegel Online. Allerdings, I don’t see anything there today about it. But recently I read a story in which various govt. talking heads were pointing out that the gas supply from the USA would not only be more expensive but also much more insecure because of the delivery route (ocean) and should not be prioritized over Russian gas arriving via pipeline. It is kind of a no-brainer. I don’t really think Germans are that stupid to put up with something like that. Many are already restive over American bases on German territory and military support services such as medical etc. for various wars being supported from Landshut, Ramstein, etc.. Time will tell, probably fairly soon, and I sure hope Merkel and Macron can form an anti-US-gas junta of some kind.

Merkel doesn’t give a $hit. She’s pro industry when it comes to protecting Adolf’s car plant, err VW and all the other German auto manufacturers (Dieselgate). With regard to sanctions she bows to her puppet masters in the US – at least that’s the impression someone could get. Her non-existing protest could barely be heard.

With Merkel Germans are screwed twice. She sides with industry against German citizens and she sides with the US against German industry and German citizens.

I agree with recent PC Roberts views regarding Russians delusional policys toward Gringos relentless aggressions and it’ll end with big disaster. Appeasment is never good and very dangerous, so the history could be repeated, if Mr. Putin continue his foolish dance with the Devil.
It’ll result in complete New World Order with only two superpowers: Russia and China. Like all empires the Gringo Empire must fall and will, guaranteed. As Mr. Putin said, Russia will never fight war on its territory.

You are right. Appeasement to the Gringos is perceived as weakness and is to be taken advantage of. NK has shown the way. Having nuclear weapons and acting a little crazy is making the US have a rethink. It looks like the US is going to blink first and wants to talk now that their mainland could soon be threatened. Not sure SK wants the US to try a preemptive strike, when NK can now take then off the map.

USA is crawling towards dictatorship for some time now, but it seems that Neocons have spotted their chance to completely dominate USA foreign policy with Trump. What do i mean? Well, they got the President who opposes (better say opposed) hardline stance on Russia, has an “interesting” view on NATO and who wanted to end globalisation. The very same globalisation the West depends on, without it it would collapse economically.

What better chance to usurp absolute power than this? Since most people living in major cities like Washington and California are clueless sheep, it is easy for the Neocons to play the fear card, wheater it’s the fear of Russia, Iran or North Korea. USA is most likely headed to either civil war or total dictatorship. People have no say over their masters decision making. The country is not an Democracy after all, but an Republic.

About these provocations we see all over the world. Economic collapse of the USA is irreversable, since most of the “economy” is based on the money laundring sham. Everything is overpriced, some things that have no value are priced just to justify dollar printing. Their only solution is to provoce a major war on multiple fronts, in order to reset the debt system. Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo and basically all IT giants have no real value. Profits of these companies are null, based on belief as the dollar. There is a difference in priced value and use value. Priced (nominal) value is often artificial, rigged to suit the profits. Compare that to the value of oil or gas, for example. People can live without Facebook and Microsoft Winblows (plenty of OS alternatives out there for the ill-informed) but can’t live normally without gas and oil.

So they will do anything to create chaos in the world. Be prepared, expecially those of you living in the USA.

You don’t see that kind of overwhelming vote in Congress unless the ‘Lobby,’ AIPAC, is calling the shots.

There will be NO US NG sold to Europe, that will be supplied by Israel from the Leviathan NG field, stealing NG from Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt, to sell to Europe thru a pipeline that is being built to Cyprus, then onto Europe.

“Unless they react immediately, the companies who have invested in the European Union’s solution for their energy supply are now ruined. Wintershall, E.ON Ruhrgas, N. V. Nederlandse Gasunie, and Engie (ex-GDF Suez) had all committed to the doubling of the gas pipeline North Stream, which is now forbidden by Congress. They not only forfeit the right to respond to US calls for tender, but they also lose all their assets in the United States. They are refused entry to international banks and are forbidden to pursue their activities outside the Union.”

“Paul Wolfowitz […] worked for Republican President Bush the Elder to help with the war against Russia. He became Assistant Secretary of Defense ten years later, under Bush Junior, and then President of the World Bank. Last year, he gave his support to Democrat Hillary Clinton.
***In 1992, he wrote that the most dangerous competitor of the United States was the European Union, and that Washington should destroy it politically, even economically.***

3] « US Strategy Plan Calls For Insuring No Rivals Develop », Patrick E. Tyler, New York Times, March 8, 1992. The daily NYT also publishes large extracts from Wolfowitz’s secret report on page 14 : « Excerpts from Pentagon’s Plan : “Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival” ». Further information is provided in « Keeping the US First, Pentagon Would preclude a Rival Superpower » Barton Gellman, The Washington Post, March 11, 1992.

… faraway Russia, with her relatively small economy, is just not that important to them.

That’s true. An economy of roughly 145 million people doesn’t make much of a difference. But don’t forget about all the natural resources Russia could offer for “free” to the Oil Industry, the Mining Industry, etc.

Think about that for a minute. Russia’s population is basically the size of France and Germany combined.If Ukraine is freed and reintegrated along with the Eurasian market. The population is the size of ,France,Germany,Britain,and the Netherlands combined. Not a small number,and combine that with the vast natural resources they have. And you have a giant in the World.If handled correctly Russia’s future matches the saying “my futures so bright,I gotta wear shades”.

As a U.S. citizen, who has exactly ZERO influence in adjusting the disastrous course of the past few administration, I am deeply embarrassed by this “embargotitis”.
The way it progressed, the only two countries that are not going to be somehow embargoed are going to be Israel and ourself.
When one embargoes half the world, one basically embargoes itself en the logic escapes me except if one thinks of the embargo breakers, in the form of our Masters of Universe in Tel Aviv.

Saker, with your expert knowledge of all things military, can you explain to me how the North Korean missile test on July 4th had an apogee of 2,500 km according to the Pentagon, yet only 510 km according to Russian military, and test of July 28th had an apogee of 3,000 km according to the Pentagon, but only 681 km according to Russia? These are huge differences and make all the difference as to whether it was indeed an ICBM that could threaten mainland USA cities or a regular IRBM only capable reaching Japan.

The initial reports from South Korea, Japan and US was that it was another IRBM test, and it was only after three days of “further analysis’ that it was declared to be an ICBM. That would also seem to imply that it would have been impossible to predict the missiles trajectory in real-time in order to fire an anti-missile missile at it.

Why would Russia want to under-report? Why would the US want to over-report? (Obviously North Korea has an interest in over-reporting).

I don’t see it quite like that. World domination is about money and control, not at all about religion. Why would the US be happy with an ally like Saudi Arabia? – its not for their religion, its for their oil.

I think the US economy is dying, and has been at least since 2008, see this . The US economy will therefore blow up at some stage, and at that point they will start WW3, giving them the opportunity to grab some more land and resources.

WW3 will give them the opportunity to use their Emergency Powers to change to a War Economy, see this which explains a number of activities most people have ignored up until now (Why a surveillance system that covers the whole world? Why such militarised police for on the whole peaceful public protests? )

So NK getting ICBMs (even faked ones) just makes the war scenario more credible.

To pull this off, the US has to be on the brink of war, ALL the time. The chaos left behind by their earlier “failed” interventions, will make re-invasion much easier.

Ukraine, north corea, and even Venezuela willl be used as a means to rally the vasal states aka ‘allies’ around a new normal in economics. Sanctions economics replaces the free market dogma there where this freedom leads to geostrategic losses. In this nuclear age we can not expect a real war with Russia or China. Its more about closing off economic spaces to get rid of rivals that are better at the free market game. The sanctions against Russia are actually more targeted at Europe. The US sees a Eurasian economic integration as a threat. It is trying to isolate China and Russia from the world economy. That’s why for example the North Corea hysteria is created. To blame China and sanction it. Sanctions are the goal not the means to solve a conflict. Ukraine also was the response to the panic in Washington about a Lisbon to Vladivostok free trade zone idea. It served as an excuse to impose sanctions and cut the Europeans off from their eastern neighbors. That explains the new sanctions round ‘out of the clear blue sky’. And Venezuela has to serve as an example to the continent of what happens when you think you can do better then being a backyard to the empire. First the leftist Colombian guerillas will be silence by some peace treaty. Then a civil war will be imposed on Venezuela. Unless Maduro gets really clever and he can control the violence and life with just the economic hardship imposed upon the country.

Very interesting analysis. Your unique perspective provides great insight. I have a different take on President Trump but that doesn’t alter the basic merits of your arguments. Glad I checked back into your site. Thanks Saker!

Dear Andrei – spot on, as usual. I love your analogies, especially the “kindergarten on LSD”. Yes, America needs a Patriot to carry the sword to clean up the poopy mess the current Congress has made. Everyone in the military, where one would expect said Patriot to come from, are too war mongering in my opinion. Who else is there? I’d volunteer but . . .

What a robust and nutritious roundtable repast I have chanced upon. Javing summarily feadted heteupon, .I am sated. I will add my philosophical tuppence for the innkeeper: there is indeed a de facto soft coup afoot laddies, one marked (yet largely under-discussed) manifestation of which was ladt year’s tactical strike by the GOP to virtually shred the constitution by refusing the executive branch’s unmistakably.legitimate prerogative to designate a replacement for the SCOTUS. Largely, they did it “just because they could” and were undoubtedly directed to that end by their corporate handlers. As a result of that brazen usurpation, and in light of the latest corollary power-grab I haven’t the least grain of faith that these despicable lapdogs will restrain themselves from unleashing Armageddon, in alignment with the same iabove reasoning. In calculaing the odds one should not neglect to factor in the political inebriation variable currently at play in Washington. Its challenging in the main to accurately 2nd-guess men who are thoroughly drunk with power while growing increasingly desperate on behalf of their corporate donors, as I’ve but little doubt Vlad tbe Regaler knows. And given the potentially stupendous demise of the soon-to-be Late-GreatAmerican Super petro dollar state, there is also a version of Israel’s legendary Samson Strategy to be considered among the drunken inmates running our political asylum up north and east. I am envisioning a parallel collapse of tje U.S. along the lines of the old Soviet Republic. But louder. Much, much louder. See you fpr coffee in the backyard bomb shelter!

The initial question Why, could maybe answered quite simply by cross checking Who gave Satanyahu a standing ovation when he preached uninvited, Nothing there happens on the ground of rational consideration but who has the Power (and Money), well it is rational, if one is a beast. We know that the real Senate consists of a handful of people with real power, the others do as they are ordered. And since the NeoCons are in charge again, everything looks like 2001/2002 with Iraq, everyone sane was gasping for breath hearing the latest news from the center of insanity.
So back to Why ? Answer: Pure, evil Insanity period. Why should it have changed ?

How can you write ……..To commentator … please read moderation policy …. we are here to discuss ideas and events of the the day not to trash or denigrate other commentators/authors … your comment has been removed … mod

It is well known that the US Congress is Israeli occupied territory. Israel has been working to balkanize the Arab nations that are its opponents by exacerbating the Sunni Shia divide and militarizing it by inserting billions of dollars worth of arms into the region. It hasn’t worked in Iraq, which has become a Shia stronghold, and Russia has prevented Syria from being dismembered by warring factions. For this Russia must be punished.

Likewise the EU has recently required labeling of goods imported into the EU from the Israeli occupied territories and there has been major support for the BDS movement in the EU. For this Europe must be punished. The only way that these sanctions make sense is from the point of view of Israeli interests, which have become, given the power of the Israeli lobby, the interests of the US. The Israeli colonial enterprise now includes the United States. The sanctions kill two birds with one stone not to mention trying to force the EU to buy expensive US gas that Wall Street, also Israeli occupied territory, has heavily invested in and which with current prices stands to lose a bundle.

The arrogance and the hubris of the Israeli operatives in the US is about to backfire. Russia is Europe’s natural ally both politically and economically, hence the efforts of the Anglo-Jewish banking monopoly to render them apart. World War I actually began over a pipeline Berlin to Bagdad. They are still fighting the same war. Hopefully this new round of outrageously self serving sanctions will wake the EU up to what its true interests are. The reason that Brexit has been so traumatic to the elites is the, Britain’s membership in the EU was able to curb any independence in Brussels and Berlin. If Europe and Russia were to unite their interests, they would be the greatest power on earth, and the US could go peddle it’s corruption on the moon, since no one else will be interested

I wonder if someone could tell me who makes up, belongs to, “the Neocons”? This sounds like a “Deep State” lookalike; maybe they are the same thing and who is “Deep State”. Wouldn’t it make sense for political activists to focus on whoever they are; identify them, call them to account if they are promoting or manipulating the destruction of the US, socially, economically and politically. Maybe it takes a witch hunt a la days of Salam – or even MacCarthy (God forbid) – to save the US from itself. As the writer implies, the re-alignment of North America maybe but a short step from the current mess. I recall a book written by the Joel Garreau; ex Washington Post that described the result.
Another thing I wonder about; if the Neocons are hell bent on impeaching (lets use the word “Firing” Trump), who will replace him? By the way, anyone seen Ted Cruze lately?

Sitemap

Saker Android App

An Android App has been developed by one of our supporters. It is available for download and install by clicking on the Google Play Store Badge above.

All the original content published on this blog is licensed by Saker Analytics, LLC under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0). For permission to re-publish or otherwise use non-original or non-licensed content, please consult the respective source of the content.